


Songbird

by captain_iodine (orphan_account)



Series: Songbird [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Slow Burn, like a lot more than I intended (sorry), that Curie/Danse fic nobody wanted or asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8442982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/captain_iodine
Summary: Nora throws a Halloween party and everyone's invited! Cue awkwardness when her ex, Danse, shows up.He finds comfort in Curie's company, and she discovers he might not be as stone-hearted as everybody believes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora throws a Halloween party and everyone's invited! Cue awkwardness when her ex, Danse, shows up.
> 
> He finds comfort in Curie's company, and she discovers he might not be as stone-hearted as everybody believes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started out as [an innocent prompt fill](http://captain-iodine.tumblr.com/post/152387592258/2-what-did-i-just-touch-any-pairing) for [syrenpan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/syrenpan/works), intended to be short and sweet, and wound up deviating somewhat from the original prompt. I may or may not have been looking for an excuse to write about these two, and although I'm a day late and a dollar short, Halloween presented the perfect opportunity.

She tugs at the hem of her skirt.

Piper told her it was the perfect length for her — ‘Geez, with legs like yours is there anything you can’t pull off?’ — but she’s not so sure. Whenever she picks anything up, she has to carefully stoop so that she doesn’t expose anything.

It's a little weird to have anything to expose.

A year ago Curie didn’t have these concerns — didn’t have to worry if she was decent enough to be seen in public, didn’t have to worry about bedhead. The past ten months have passed in the blink of an eye, a heartbeat compared to the centuries she spent locked away in the hidden vault, and yet…

Sometimes it feels like it’s been days since Nora found her a new body; others it seems like a lifetime. She still stumbles on occasion, like a radstag fawn on gangly legs, and yet at those rare moments when she does something unconsciously — scrubs the sleep from her eyes in the morning, yawns like a lazy cat — it comes to her so naturally that it feels as though she’s been doing it all her life.

She pulls at her skirt again, fighting a losing battle. This time Piper grabs her hand and gives it a squeeze.

‘You look awesome. Quit worrying over nothing.’

It isn't _nothing_ , but she keeps that particular thought to herself.

‘Trying to win an argument with Piper is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone,’ Nora once said. It seemed like a strange comparison, but an apt one.

They walk arm in arm through Diamond City, from Publick Occurrences to the little place Nora renovated to keep as a home away from home. The invite didn't exactly say it was from Nora — it was signed off mysteriously from ‘Dr. J & Mr. H’ — but it listed the address at Home Plate. Before they even get there they can see the assortment of black-and-orange bunting strung up outside; carved pumpkins sit about the entrance, illuminated by candles that glow warmly and merrily within.

Curie doesn't know how long her friend has been planning this, but already she's impressed.

‘Is that who I think it is?’

Piper’s voice draws Curie’s attention back, and she casts a glance about for a familiar face.

‘Who is it?’ she asks.

Piper grimaces. She doesn't answer right away, at least not verbally — she gestures with a jut of her chin, pointing somebody out across the main square.

‘I wonder if he was invited.’

Curie doesn’t immediately follow; she has yet to recognize anyone in the crowd. Then she looks again, this time prompted by Piper's meaningful glance, and finally she sees what the problem is.

‘Oh, my…’

* * *

 Brotherhood regulations rarely allowed for festivities except in the case of a much-needed boost to morale; he remembers years gone by when Christmas celebrations were deemed mandatory attendance, as though the aging holotapes of Christmas music and colorful strings of lights would make up for the absence of fallen comrades.

Halloween was never on the agenda, at least not in Danse's time.

He almost didn’t come along tonight — a party in Diamond City, where he could run into any number of his former comrades? Halloween is said to be the night when the barrier between the world of the living and the dead is at its weakest, but something tells him the Brotherhood wouldn't appreciate seeing _him_ risen from the dead.

Even without the risk of being spotted, there are other… complications. Nora being number one.

It's still odd to think of her like that — as Nora, as a civilian. For months, she was Knight Williams; then came the Institute, and everything that happened after. And now she's just Nora.

For a little while there, a precious few moments, she was all that was left in the world to him. And then she was gone, her golden hair slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.

He still doesn't know why he's going tonight, when the invitation had been extended before… Well, before everything. A part of him hopes he'll find the answer when he gets there.

The costume had been her suggestion — a private joke that he wasn't quite in on, perhaps. At the very least the mask allows him a little anonymity.

Even in the town square, he hesitates. He knows once he walks through that door there's no turning back: no making excuses, not with Nora there to read his every motive without him so much as opening his mouth.

And there it is: the Home Plate. The front of it drips with her influence, from the decorations to the music streaming through the closed door.

His arms hang at his sides, hands balling into fists periodically before relaxing again. He must have done this a thousand times before be finally ventures another step.

He spots two familiar faces: Piper and Curie. They're looking over, and he recognizes that look on the reporter's face — the one that says she's not so happy to see him. The one that all Nora’s friends used to give, back when they used to be inseparable; back when she used to defend him.

Curie, though… He doesn't see that same look, or any variation thereof. Instead, her head is cocked in that curious way of hers, like a lively songbird. She was always so full of wonderment whenever they spoke, so eager to know anything and everything. He still regrets the things he said about her to Nora, behind closed doors.

Piper’s gone full-on vampire, with her dark hair piled high atop her head and exposing her long neck, complete with a gruesome bite mark. Her plunging collar does just that: plunges and plunges, until it ends at the top of a corset. Maybe his gaze lingers a little too long and he has to drag it away, embarrassed, to study Curie instead.

He can't quite tell what her get-up is supposed to be — a dress that comes to the tops of her thighs, made of some sort of shimmering tassels. Her hair is styled, he notices, set in short, glossy waves that catch the light when she turns this way or that. About her head is a band, adorned with an extravagant plume of feathers.

He realizes a little too late that they’ve noticed him staring; he looks down at his feet, pretending to study the shine of his dress shoes.

‘Monsieur Danse?’

It’s so soft, so timid, that he shouldn’t hear it; and yet Curie has such sweet, tender presence in a room — or, in this case, in a crowded town — that it’s hard to miss her. When he looks up she’s smiling at him cautiously, and that songbird head-tilt is back. Ever the gentle soul.

‘Ms. Curie,’ he replies, with a polite nod of his head.

It’s still hard to wrap his head around who she is sometimes — _what_ she is. There are times he forgets he’s just like her, and yet nothing like her at all.

‘I thought it was you,’ she says brightly, and her smile grows just a little. ‘I wasn’t sure…’

When she gestures to his face, he reflexively touches his hand to the half-mask that covers the right side of him, leaving the left exposed. He had thought it risky, when Nora had brought him the mask — had argued that she should have picked out one which hid his identity a little better. She had laughed in that clear-as-a-bell way of hers, and pressed it into his hands, and nuzzled her nose against his stubble in the way that always used to warm him from head to toe.

‘Nobody’ll expect you there,’ she had said. ‘Besides, you go a hundred percent incognito all the time — you deserve to dial it back to fifty for once.’

Curie is looking at him, expectantly. He catches the way her eyes alight on his hand where it still rests on the smooth white surface of his mask, then flits to meet his glance. She’s always doing that — always watching people, always studying. He feels like she does a better job of blending in every time he sees her.

‘Am I really that recognizable?’ he asks, suppressing a groan.

Another smile from her, and for a moment she’s a kindly nurse reassuring a frightened young patient.

‘Not at all, Monsieur,’ she replies. ‘Only if you know what to look for.’

He lets the two women go ahead of him into the party, a subconscious buffer for what has yet to come. Although he lags a little behind he can hear them talking; once or twice he hears Nora’s name, followed by his own.

* * *

It’s a lot to take in at times — the sights, the sounds. There are ways in which her old body was superior, and yet as vulnerable as she feels in flesh and blood at times, it feels like she can finally see all the little details she was missing out on.

When Curie steps into the building, cobwebs brush past her face, tickling her cheeks and her neck; the shudder that winds through her is as visceral as it is unexpected. Beside her, Piper sputters and waves her hands about herself, fruitlessly swatting the strands away.

‘Cheap trick,’ Piper mutters. ‘Typical Blue…’

Music filters from all sides, and the place feels odd somehow — smaller, even in the darkness, punctuated only by glowing spiders that hang from the ceiling. When Curie tries to walk straight ahead, the toe of her pump clips a wall: Nora has set up partitions, serving as a barrier to the party. She can hear the other guests somewhere in the home, but they’ll have to work to get there.

After a beat, something large and very heavy collides with her and her own soft exclamation is dampened by a man’s voice cursing in surprise. She feels the warmth of a body against her back, strong and unyielding, and then the pressure is gone. A tentative hand touches her shoulder and a gentle voice finds her ear.

‘Sorry,’ Danse says, and she stammers something out in response.

Their path takes them through a miniature maze of sorts, replete with dead ends — at which they are greeted by horrible skeletons and ghouls. When it seems they have traveled farther than the confines of the home should allow, they finally emerge into the party.

She stands, dazed, and stares at the scene before her: strangers and friends alike, decked out in all manner of costumes, some sort of fixture hanging from the ceiling that emits multicoloured lights in erratic beams around the room. It’s possible to pick out the details of the song now, the eerie organ sounds and ominous howls in the background.

It’s too much; her senses are overpowered and overtaxed, and she can do nothing more than gape open-mouthed ahead of her. Soon Piper’s hand finds her own and gives it one short, tight squeeze, and the contact is enough to ground her. Curie clears her throat delicately, turning to her friend.

‘It is all right,’ she insists. ‘I was merely caught by surprise.’

Piper’s wry little grin suggests that she thinks otherwise, but she says nothing to contradict her.

‘C’mon,’ the reporter says. She tips her head toward the edge of the room, where the furniture has been pushed aside to make space. ‘Let’s claim ourselves a good spot.’

Curie remembers Danse only as they’re stepping away, and she turns back to look at him meekly; he’s looking elsewhere, hands tucked beneath his cape into the pockets of his slacks. She tries to catch his eye — and fails, as Piper drags her stubbornly to a free spot on a sofa.

‘Do you think he will be okay?’ she asks, raising her voice a little to be heard.

Piper’s brow furrows when she looks at her — confusion, Curie thinks.

‘Who?’ Piper replies. ‘Paladin Anti-Social? I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s a big boy.’

Curie isn’t so sure, but there’s nothing to be done about it as she finds herself wedged between Piper and a stranger in a wolf costume.

She’s barely sitting beside the wolf more than a minute before he removes his mask and looks at her appraisingly, giving a comical howl.

* * *

If there’s one certainty at parties, whatever the occasion, it’s alcohol.

Sure as there’ll be people celebrating a little too hard, sure as there’ll be somebody stinking the place up with cigarette smoke, there’ll be booze — and plenty of it.

Danse makes his home for the night by the table overburdened with an abundance of bottles, some labeled and others not. It occurs to him that he probably should have brought something along — that’s the tradition, isn’t it? — but without Nora to help him negotiate the hurdles of etiquette he finds himself floundering lately. It’s not like he has much of a social life, anyway, being dead as he supposedly is.

He helps himself to a glass of something that by color and smell seems to be whiskey; the first mouthful has him doubting the decision, but he knocks the rest of the drink back anyway.

‘You showed up.’

He feels the hairs prickle at the back of his neck; he doesn’t need to turn around to know who that voice belongs to, or to anticipate the look on her face. Still, he’s not prepared for the hit to his gut when he turns and finds her looking at him coolly, not quite unwelcoming but not exactly laying out the red carpet for him, either.

He takes a little while to look her costume over before he responds, giving himself the chance to fabricate somewhat of a calm demeanor. A top hat sits on her head, her blonde hair pinned neatly on one side while the other hangs in wild snarls about her face. The right side of her face is made up to look like a prim and austere older man, elaborate mustache and all; the left side is monstrous, with boils and tufts of hair sprouting from it.

He looks down: her outfit is half lab coat, half torn, ragged suit. Even decked out as she is, it doesn’t hide the soft curve of her cheek, or the way her waist nips in just so beneath her jacket. He can’t quite get the thought of his arm wrapped around that waist from his head by the time she clears her throat, drawing his glance to her face.

‘Yes,’ he says, pathetically. ‘I couldn’t miss it when I knew how much effort you put into it.’

She looks at him oddly and the seconds tick by, palpably awkward. Finally she clears her throat again and waves her hand at the table before him.

‘I guess you’ve found the refreshments already,’ she says. ‘You just keep on helping yourself.’

The urge is there to come out with something — some bitter remark that if he’s so unwelcome, she should just tell him to go — but whatever nerve he worked up to come here in the first place is dwindling and dwindling fast.

He watches her leave, her hips swaying beneath her spliced-together jacket.

* * *

It’s not long before Piper’s in an argument with the wolf, and Curie feels it was only a matter of time — between his lecherous stares and the frequent attempts at butting in on their conversation, Curie can see her friend’s cheeks steadily growing redder and redder.

She excuses herself, but neither of the pair seems to notice as she stands up and slips away, heading for the food table across the room.

It’s louder here, and closer to the center of the festivities, but she finds it easier to blend in with so many bodies around her, distracting from her presence. She feels she could fade away into the backdrop, just another in an assortment of costumes. Her hem doesn’t seem quite so short now, her makeup quite so blatant. She’s just a part of the crowd.

She lets her gaze wander the room, taking in couples as they dance together and small groups wrapped up in animated discussions.

Eventually she lands on a cloaked figure standing alone at another table, his back to the rest of the party. She recognizes the costume, and the broad shoulders: Danse. She feels a pang of something as she watches him, alone in a room full of revelers. With a smile to herself, it occurs to her that with all the strangers and acquaintances alike there that night, she too finds herself on her own.

He isn’t far from her: close enough that she can reach out a hand and gently touch his arm.

‘Monsieur Danse! How are you enjoying the party?’

When he turns, Curie notices the glass in his hand, half-empty of its amber liquid.

‘It's good to see everybody,’ he replies. He seems tense — spooled up, ready to snap. His words might hint otherwise if his tone weren't so flat, so rigid.

‘It is rare to get so many of us together, no?’ she says.

It's an understatement and she knows it; she can't think of the last time they all met up like this.

He fidgets again. Under his cape, his hand is back in his pocket.

‘I am sorry,’ she says, shaking her head uncertainly. ‘The mask, the cape — what is this costume?’

He looks a little surprised at that, his eyebrows raising as his eyes go wide. She feels embarrassed — knows it's some reference she should probably understand — and her cheeks burn.

Danse is gentle when he responds, however: no scorn, no ridicule.

‘It was Nora’s suggestion, actually,’ he says, and there's a little hitch to his voice. ‘The Phantom of the Opera. It's about a disfigured man who haunts an opera house, trying to win the love of one of the performers.’

She nods along with interest, and to her the reference seems familiar; with her old body she might access the memory more readily, but the connection is faint now, pushed to the back of her mind.

‘Does he succeed?’ she asks.

He blinks.

‘In a way.’

The answer is elusive; it leaves her more perplexed than before, and she wants to question him further but he seems uncomfortable now — as though she struck a chord. Instead of pressing him, she reaches out and picks up the corner of his cape, lifting it and then letting it go so that the soft, velveteen fabric flutters gracefully.

‘I must apologize that the reference is lost on me,’ she says, with a rueful smile. ‘But it is a very dashing costume nevertheless.’

Danse doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so he fills the silence with a sip of his drink. After a beat he seems to startle, turning suddenly and glancing at the table laden with bottles behind him.

‘Did you want something?’ he stutters out, his hand already on the closest bottle.

She readies a polite refusal out of habit, but then she sees what his hand has fallen on — a bottle of something green and creamy looking. She recognizes it immediately, although she has never tried it herself — crème de menthe. Doctor Collins often spoke of it, mourning its probable loss to the Great War.

‘I will try some of this,’ Curie says, pointing to the bottle.

He lifts his hand, takes a look at the label. His expression is disbelieving as he looks at her.

‘Really? Crème de menthe is a little… sickly. I don’t think they have anything to make a cocktail.’

She nods her head once, resolute.

‘I’m sure.’

He lifts his cloaked shoulders in a shrug, and she stares at his back while he turns to pour the drink. He doesn’t carry himself like most of the other guests — every movement is measured and efficient, nothing done without need. He pours her drink neatly, without spilling a drop, and carefully hands it to her.

She eyes the glass first, then his hand grasping it; when she takes it from his hold she trails her glance up his arm and eventually to his face, where he watches her uncertainly. Soon his own drink is back in hand and he looks away, taking great interest in the Halloween-themed tablecloth of hand-painted spiders and pumpkins.

She lifts the glass to her lips and takes an experimental sniff — the scent of mint is almost overpowering, and yet at once it’s sweet. When she takes her first sip she almost gags from how cloying it is, but by the time she has swallowed she finds it’s not entirely unpleasant.

‘So what’s your costume?’ Danse asks, chasing his words with a gulp of his drink. He seems a little more comfortable, she finds, now that they each have a barrier of a beverage between them.

She looks down at herself — at the too-short hem, the too-high pumps, the too-sheer stockings. Where Danse has apparently relaxed somewhat, she can’t help but feel nervous again now that the attention is back on her. She’s accustomed to being the observer, not the subject.

‘A… flappy?’ she says: halting, uncertain.

Judging from the look on Danse’s face, he’s as unsure as she is.

‘Like a bird?’ he prompts.

His eyes flit to her head, and she belatedly remembers the headband there with its ostentatious spray of feathers. She doesn’t remember Piper saying anything about a bird; if she did, it certainly isn’t a particularly convincing costume.

‘I must admit I am not sure,’ she says, reluctantly. ‘It was Piper’s idea.’

She looks back across the room to her friend and finds her where she left her, still in a heated discussion with the wolf. By now he has enlisted the help of a ghoul and a priest, and Curie wonders if she should lend her assistance. Piper, however, seems to be in her element.

‘You don’t have to keep me company,’ Danse says.

She brings her attention back to him and for a moment she looks him in his dark eyes, trying to gage whether he’s trying to politely ask her to leave. She knows humans — and, she supposes, synths who have lived as humans — have a tendency to skirt around the subject and avoid directly saying what they mean.

This time, she thinks he’s speaking in earnest.

‘Monsieur Danse,’ she says, mustering the warmest smile she can, ‘I assure you I am not here out of obligation.’

He looks relieved: she thinks she can see it in the slight relaxing of his shoulders, tensed as they seemingly were.

‘If that’s your way of saying you enjoy my company,’ he says, ‘then I enjoy yours too.’

* * *

Danse is grateful that Nora seems to be going to the trouble of avoiding him tonight, but he still can’t quite escape her. Like the lingering scent of her perfume, she’s always there, just out of reach; if she isn’t at the corner of his vision, her gold hair glimmering as she nods and laughs at somebody’s joke, her name is on everyone’s lips.

It was a mistake coming tonight — for the life of him, he can’t quite figure out why he thought it was a good idea. Yet as his strategy for the night of drinking quietly and uneventfully by himself slowly begins to collapse, he finds himself thankful for Curie’s company.

Where Nora would once have dragged him into the center of the party, forcing him out of his shell to dance with her, Curie seems content to stand and chat with him at his own pace. They exchange pleasantries at first, then move on to sharing news — admittedly, she seems to have more to share with him than he does with her.

When the topic moves on to literature, she surprises him with how much she has picked up. For the first time in as long as he can remember, someone speaks to him as an equal.

‘I’m having a good time,’ he finds himself telling her, and she beams back at him.

When a slower song comes on, something a little less gaudy and Halloweeny, he opens his mouth to suggest they dance —

And then the lights go out.

It seems to take everyone a while to realize that the music has stopped; the chatter continues for a few beats in the dim light provided by the few candles about the place, then everyone goes silent. It’s short-lived — someone shouts something incoherent in surprise, and the voices pick up again in a hurried, curious hum.

Danse hears Curie give a little cry and feels her elbow collide with his stomach. Another exclamation and she thuds into him again, this time gripping his pectoral to keep her balance.

‘Oh, Monsieur Danse,’ she exclaims, and he hears urgency in her voice, laced with panic. ‘What did I just touch? Did I hurt you? I am so sorry!’

He sets his drink aside and brings his hands up to her shoulders, gripping her gently. As his eyes adapt, he sees the cause for her bumping into him: in the excitement, the crowd has begun to mill around. He carefully steers her, leading her away.

Before long Nora’s clear, commanding voice cuts through the din.

‘Attention, everyone! We’re having… technical difficulties right now. Seems I got a little overzealous with the lights and tripped a switch. We’ll get you back to your regularly-scheduled entertainment ASAP.’

He almost smiles at the last part — how she still says it the military way, two-syllable, like she can’t quite drop the habit.

Curie saves him from potential reverie; he feels her use his arms to brace herself as she steps up on tiptoe, getting close to his ear to be heard over the noise.

‘Will you take me outside?’

He doesn’t need to ask her why, doesn’t need to see her face to know that she’s uncomfortable.

They walk hand-in-hand through the party, squeezing between guests where they have to. By the time they get to the little maze set up at the entrance, the lights and music are back on. Still he moves forward, and Curie seems only too happy to keep up with his pace.

The night outside is colder than he remembers, but he’s thankful for the relief from the heat generated in the party by dozens of bodies. The Home Plate had always seemed cramped whenever he was there with Nora; it’s a wonder she managed to cram in as many people as she did.

He looks to Curie and finds her pale, her eyes wide. They both seem to realize at the same moment that they’re still holding hands, and they let go in unison.

The feathers in her headband are bent and battered, a casualty of their retreat from the party. Danse plucks one free from its new home in her hair and lets it float to the ground.

‘Are you all right?’ he asks her.

She tries a faltering smile and he knows that she doesn’t want him to worry, whatever her own feelings might be. He feels a little annoyed at himself — for coming tonight, mostly, but a little bit of it is knowing that she feels like she can’t be honest with him because he has made her feel that way.

Whatever leaps and bounds they might have made by way of sharing conversation tonight, he’s still the man who only a few months ago was denouncing people like her as abominations.

He tries, and fails, to keep from running over all the things he has said about her, before he knew better.

‘Thank you,’ she says.

Her words seem genuine enough; if there is any doubt still in him, she chases it away as she stretches up onto her toes and touches a kiss to the side of his mouth left exposed by his mask.

When she pulls away, her cheeks are a rosy pink. His lips still tingle from the contact.

‘I think I would like something to eat,’ she says.

Curie walks away and he watches after her, lost for words. She stops not far from him and turns back, and to Danse it seems the blush of her cheeks makes her especially pretty.

‘Well?’ she prompts.

She totters back to him and grabs his hand, giving it a tug.

‘Aren’t you coming?’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora plays host yet again, this time at Thanksgiving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Retroactively making the Songbird series a chapter fic, for ease of reading. This fic will be sfw from here on out. 
> 
> Original notes:
> 
> Prompt fill for [tess1978](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tess1978/profile) for [this prompt over on tumblr](http://captain-iodine.tumblr.com/post/153379276738/26-danse-and-curie-i-know-i-keep-beating-this).
> 
> There's a little bit of Danse/f!Sole angst towards the end, but everything has its place...
> 
> Is there a ship name for Danse/Curie yet? We need one ASAP!

The first time Nora ever cooked for Danse — properly cooked, not just protein sachets and boiled water while on patrol — she had been all bashful smiles and golden curls tucked behind her ears.

She had tried to make pasta sauce from scratch, and to this day he still remembers the smell of the tatos simmering away behind her, long-forgotten as she came and sat in his lap. Her home had been filled with the stench of burning soon enough, and the pot had come away stained so badly she had no choice but to throw it out.

They had laughed about it; ordered some noodles to go from Takahashi and sat talking for hours on the beat-up sofa in her home. He had known that night that he loved her.

He sits in that same house now, on that same sofa, and he listens in silence to the happy chattering of his friends around him.

 _Friends._ That's an interesting one.

There's Nora, of course — gracious hostess for the evening. She had made sure to give him his invite in person this time, and when he had expressed surprised she had given an elusive little shrug.

‘It's Thanksgiving,’ she had said. ‘Everybody's invited to Thanksgiving.’

Then there's Deacon, busy spinning tall tales to whoever will listen. He and Danse never really saw eye to eye, but they've come to share a grudging respect in the time since his origins came to light.

He tries not to think too long and hard about whether he can call Curie a friend, and instead idly watches her where she stands in the kitchen with Nora, learning the ropes from the expert herself.

Danse can think of one meal Nora prepared for him that didn't wind up either burnt or unpalatable, and if memory serves it came out of a box.

Confusion comes off Curie in waves, obvious even across the room. She seems to have figured out the basics of things — chopping fresh vegetables is a little below her level of genius — but from what Danse can gather, she's having trouble with the main course.

‘You are taking the brahmin meat,’ she says, ‘and you are putting it inside the chicken? Did everyone do this in your time?’

Nora’s laugh comes then, sweet and clear as a bell, and he feels a familiar tightness in his chest at the sound of it.

‘It used to be a chicken, a duck and a turkey, but we're improvising.’

The answer doesn't seem to lessen Curie's confusion any, and Danse sees her eye Nora suspiciously while she stuffs the chicken. He can't say it's something he understands, either; he'd claim to trust Nora, but he knows her track record with food better than most.

‘You stick to peeling and chopping,’ Nora says. ‘I've got the bird under control.’

As the conversation tapers off, Danse's attention turns to the other occupants of the room — Piper sits with Nick, talking animatedly and waving her hands with characteristic flair; Hancock has laid claim to the veritable stash of booze that sits unguarded in another corner.

The Brotherhood gave Danse stability, gave him discipline and conduct. As Paladin he had known precisely what his role was and where he had belonged within the cogs of the machine; that sense of order is gone now, and each day makes all of that seem less and less real, like a dream.

As ragtag as this band of misfits is, it's as close as Danse has to home.

Eventually Nora wanders off to join Hancock, pouring herself a glass of whatever he recommends, and Danse gaze moves absently back to the little kitchen area she left behind.

Curie still stands there; he looks at her shoulders within the baggy sweater she wears, and at the sleeves where she has rolled them up at the elbows. Her slight hands move swiftly and methodically, making quick work of the vegetables on the countertop in front of her.

He doesn't see the knife slip, but he notices her falter; hears her sharp little intake of breath. When she grabs her finger and lifts it to inspect the damage, he can see the blood — but by then he's already on his feet, hurrying over.

‘She keeps a first-aid kit in here somewhere,’ he says, arriving at her elbow. ‘You need to wash out the wound to make sure it doesn't get infected.’

Of course Curie knows that — she was programmed with medical knowledge that far exceeds the little bit he picked up as part of his training — yet she doesn't argue, moving to the sink and turning on the faucet with one hand while shoving the wounded one into the stream of water.

He opens cupboard doors, finding everything rearranged from the last time he was here to see them. In the end the first-aid kit is under the sink, and he has to politely ask her to move out of the way as he ducks down to get it.

She dries her hand on the fabric of her sweater, careful not to stain it with blood. By the time Danse gets a chance to look at it, the cut has beaded with crimson again.

Curie doesn't seem distressed, at least, but then that doesn't surprise him. He wonders if she approaches every injury like this — with scientific curiosity. He wonders if she feels pain the way he does.

He realizes, guiltily, that he's treating her like a thing — and not for the first time. A few months ago he would have had no problem seeing her that way, but that was before. Before everything.

‘Monsieur Danse?’ she asks, and when he looks up she's watching him curiously.

He swallows down his guilt, and turns his attention back to the task at hand.

She lets him inspect the cut on her finger, turning her hand this way and that at his request. It doesn't look all that serious, but he'll cover it up nonetheless.

‘You should be more careful,’ he says, using a piece of gauze and some iodine to carefully mop up the worst of the blood.

She looks at him, her nose wrinkling slightly.

‘I was trying to be,’ she protests. ‘I merely was distracted by something.’

He wants dearly to ask what pulled her attention away long enough to hurt herself, but it's one of those things that he's not sure he's allowed to do — a line sits there, ready to be crossed, but he knows once he does, there'll be no going back.

Danse keeps his question to himself, and when Curie doesn't volunteer the information he decides it was for the best.

She watches him while he works, and he's aware of it from the prickle he feels at the back of his neck as the hairs there stand on end.

‘I had fun,’ she says suddenly. ‘At Halloween, I mean to say.’

He lifts his head to look at her, just in time to catch the way her cheeks flush slightly pink. He can't help but think she brought it up out of awkwardness.

He had enjoyed himself too; it was the first real chance he'd had to talk with Curie one-to-one, sharing tales from their past over noodles and Nuka Cola.

He thinks he can feel the ghost of the kiss she placed on the corner of his mouth.

‘I did too,’ he says. His tone is flat — formal; safe.

There's more he'd like to say, but he busies himself with seeking out a fresh strip of gauze from the kit in his hands instead.

He thinks Curie sighs, but if she means to say anything else she keeps it to herself.

When he finishes, he finds her looking at him again with something in her expression that he can't quite figure out. It makes him want to look away — to turn and run, if he's honest — but he fights the urge and tries his best smile.

‘All done,’ he says. ‘I think you'll live.’

She mirrors his smile, but to him it's a little cool.

He can't help but feel like he annoyed her somehow, like he should question her about it, but that never worked so well with Nora. When she was mad at him, it was better to leave her alone until she was ready to come to him.

‘Your bedside manner is impeccable,’ she says, flexing her hand experimentally. Her pointer finger is neatly wrapped in gauze, secured with medical tape. ‘Perhaps you have found your new calling.’

It occurs to Danse that she might be teasing him, but when he tries to read her face she turns and goes back to the chopping board, resuming her work.

* * *

Dinner is a success.

By the end of it everyone's a little merrier than planned thanks to Hancock and Nora ensuring that nobody's glass stayed empty. The drink at the dinner table — some overly sweet wine that smelled like spices — was heady, and Danse feels fuzzy around the edges as he leaves the Home Plate.

He's not going back to Goodneighbor — not now in the dark, with his senses so dulled. He'll try to grab a room at the Dugout until morning.

He ducks his head low as he goes, avoiding catching the eye of anybody who recognizes him. A rain has picked up in the time since he first walked through the door at the Home Plate, so he quickens his pace a little.

He hears her voice before he's around the corner: Nora. She calls out for him to stop, and just like that his feet stop of their own accord. Her wish is his command.

When he turns to her, her carefully-curled hair is already flat under the weight of the water, hanging limp about her head.

‘You could crash on the couch if you wanted to, you know.’

He meets her eye, and it feels like the first time in years. She's not hostile, not indifferent: he thinks he sees a little concern there, in the lines around her mouth as she looks right back at him.

‘I'll be fine,’ he replies curtly. ‘I can get a room at the Inn.’

She chews her lip thoughtfully for a while, then nods.

‘Okay.’

Danse turns to go, but she's grabbing him by the hand a moment later, tugging at him to stop.

He doesn't want to think about what any of this means — to him, to her. He wants to leave, he wants her to let him go. He wants to forget.

‘Danse,’ she says, and it's the same voice as when she used to call him _Baby_.

He can't help it: he turns around, and she's there with her hair flattened to her head, her blouse turned translucent by the water, and he knows if he looks closely he'll see raindrops beaded on her eyelashes.

He looks at her lips instead, painted red, and when that's too much he settles for staring down at his feet.

‘I'm sorry,’ she says. It's so quiet he almost doesn't hear it, but it's there nonetheless.

Danse doesn't know what to say, so he keeps his mouth shut.

‘I know things ended badly,’ she says. ‘And I know I never said how sorry I was about all of it.’

He could tell her that she doesn't need to apologize — that he has spent this time blaming himself. He could ask her why: why then, why with _him_. He could could say that he still thinks about her so much that it makes his head throb just to hear her name.

‘Mac headed home for a little while,’ she adds. ‘To the Capital. To his son. I figured now was as good a time as any to clear the air.’

So that's it. She's unburdening herself. At least she gave him the courtesy of doing it without her new boyfriend to stare moodily at him from the corner.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

It's a pitiful response, but what else is there to say?

There's barely a foot between them; Nora’s so close he can smell her perfume even through the petrichor brought out by the rain.

She bridges that little bit of space between them, that gap that is at once worlds of distance and nothing at all, and he can't help but slip his arms around her as she presses to him. Her arms drape around his neck a moment later and she stretches up to reach him, pressing her lips to his in a flurry of wine-flavored kisses.

When she pulls away, he lifts his eyes to hers and her glance is full of need. Her lipstick is a little smudged from the force of the kiss, and when he listens closely her breathing is as shallow as his own.

‘I miss you,’ she says.

She closes her eyes and presses her lips together — savoring the memory of the kiss, maybe.

When Nora looks at him again there's something there, something that feels like an invitation.

He knows what she's doing now, knows _why_.

MacCready’s gone. She's lonely.

It's like this is all he's been waiting for, yet it leaves him colder than the November rain dripping down his back.

‘I should go,’ he says.

He watches disappointment flash across her face, but in an instant her features harden. He was never very good at guessing people's thoughts, but he knows what that steel in her eyes means. She's not getting her way.

‘Fine,’ she says tartly.

She turns and stalks away without another word, taking with her whatever possibilities she had offered him.

It's only now, as she lets herself back into her home and allows the door to slam behind her, that Danse wonders if he made the wrong call.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curie participates in an ancient human tradition: Christmas shopping.

Christmas makes its impending arrival known in Diamond City the same way each year; already the market at the heart of the town is all done up in garish multicolored lights, and a particularly feeble-looking tree adorns the roof of Takahashi’s noodle bar.

Although the damp November gloom has given way to the chill of December, the ground is still churned up by the trudging of hundreds of pairs feet, local and otherwise. The boards that make up the walkways are slick with mud, and Curie has to watch her step so she doesn't slip as she browses.

She's grateful for her thick leather boots lined with sheepskin, and even more so for the cable knit sweater that swims about her shoulders.

People glance up as she passes by, some nodding tersely and others going so far as to smile. In her time in the city she has come to be a familiar face for the notoriously loyal citizens, although she suspects she owes their more welcoming demeanor in no small part to her friendship with Piper.

Myrna is still icy, if not downright hostile — while it's not entirely common knowledge that Curie's body is synthetic, there are certainly whispers about it. She's glad to see that Percy has already begun his shift at Diamond City Surplus as she meanders about the store fronts.

She had been apprehensive about coming out tonight; Christmas Day looms ever closer and the humans around her seem dogged by a particular sense of urgency over the impending deadline, but this is the first year she has had anybody to buy for.

There's Piper, to begin with: friend-of-a-friend turned ally turned confidante, it seems polite to buy a gift for the woman who has so graciously offered to share her living space with her.

Nick has shown her a great deal of compassion over the past few months during her adjustment to her synth form, so it might be thoughtful to find some token gift for him.

Nora probably expects something too: it certainly seems fitting to find a gift for the one responsible for freeing her from Vault 81 and helping her find her new body. While Nora insists there's no favor to be repaid, Curie still feels indebted to her.

And then… Danse.

She had thought about getting him a gift after Halloween, when the first murmurs of Christmas had been in the air. At Thanksgiving she had wondered if she could glean a little bit of information about his interests.

Then she had seen Danse with Nora, in the rain after Thanksgiving dinner — had seen them _together_ in a way that had made her stomach twinge uncomfortably. Even thinking of it now leaves her with an unpleasant tightness in her chest that she can't quite fathom.

She stands in front of Fallon’s, at the top of the stairs that lead down to the entrance. A disgruntled cough behind her informs her that she's in someone's way; sidestepping, she mutters an apology.

She'll start with Piper. At least there's no confusion about where _they_ stand with each other.

* * *

Piper waits just inside the door as she gets home and Curie has to clutch her bag of gifts tightly to her chest before the journalist can get a chance to delve inside.

She swats at her friend, exasperated though unsurprised.

‘Have a little patience!’ she says, using her best stern teacher voice. ‘Christmas is not so far away.’

The pout that Piper wears is comical in its severity, and although Curie knows she's joking she can tell there's a little part of her that's disappointed. If there's anything her friend can't stand, it's not being in on the big secret.

‘Fine,’ Piper mutters, throwing her hands up. ‘I'll wait. You gonna tell me what you got everyone else, at least?’

Curie hesitates. This is her first time buying for Christmas; although she saw her human team members exchange gifts with one another in Vault 81, it was mostly a matter of wrapping a ribbon around items they already had lying around.

She understands the concept of it, of course, and the purpose — to bring merriment to loved ones by presenting them with something, usually a surprise, that will make them happy. She has seen enough years of gifted and regifted coffee mugs and socks to know what makes for a _bad_ present, at least.

Piper can't help but try to peer into Curie's bag as she takes out one thing at a time, setting them down on the sofa.

There's the notebook for Nat; a novelty ashtray for Nick, in the shape of the stadium in which Diamond City was founded; for Nora, a scarf of deep blue and gold.

She pauses before lifting the last item out, setting it down tentatively before Piper without saying who she bought it for.

To most of the people doing their shopping, it had probably seemed unimpressive: a book, a little dog-eared and tattered, with a dubious stain on the fore edge. It's a large volume, hardback, just over a thousand pages. If it weren't intended as a gift, it would probably make for a mean makeshift weapon.

The cover might have been vibrant once; now, the gold-print title has faded to the point of being virtually illegible.

Piper eyes it curiously. Her fingers reach out for it and, when Curie doesn't shoo her away, she lifts the front cover to take a look at the title page inside.

‘ _The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe_ ,’ she recites. ‘Fancy. Where’d you find something like this?’

Curie attempts to keep her face neutral. She could tell her friend that it wound up costing her more dearly than it should have when the trader realized how interested she was in buying it, but that would open a line of questioning into why she was willing to spend so much on it.

‘A traveling merchant did a run to the library,’ she says. ‘He said he has been trying to sell it for weeks.’

One of Piper's eyebrows lifts as she flips through the book, gently so as to avoid damaging the frail pages.

‘Who's it for?’ Piper asks, without looking up.

Curie winces. This was why she was so reluctant to show it to her friend.

‘I'm not even sure if I will keep it,’ she says, feigning indifference. ‘It was a silly impulse purchase.’

‘Who's it _for_?’

It's pointless to try to dodge the subject. Evading Piper will only convince her all the more that there's something to it.

Curie tries to keep her tone light, casual. She doesn't think she does a very good job even as the words come out of her mouth.

‘I bought it for Monsieur Danse.’

She sees Piper's head cock just so; her friend slowly closes the book and sets it aside, folding her arms across her chest.

‘How much did you say you paid?’ she asks.

Her tone is innocent, but Curie isn't fooled.

‘I didn't,’ Curie says.

She begins the process of returning everything to the bag, still careful to make sure Piper can't see her own gift in the bottom. Fortunately — or, perhaps, _unfortunately_ — she seems more interested in the book.

‘You got fleeced, didn't you?’

Curie's ears burn; she does her best to remain focused on her task, but at the corner of her vision she can see Piper looking close to try to get her attention.

‘No offense,’ Piper says, ‘but maybe you could've saved yourself some caps and picked up a couple issues of _Guns and Bullets_ instead.’

The comment irritates Curie irrationally. She wants to retort that Danse isn't just interested in things that go bang, but even before she can formulate the sentence she knows what Piper will say in response — _Why are you getting so defensive?_

Why, indeed.

‘Perhaps,’ she says, shrugging.

The book is the last thing she returns to the bag, placing it with the other gifts with great care.

Piper doesn't press her any further; Curie brings her haul to the part of the abode that has been partitioned off to serve as her room and stashes the bag beneath her bed. She knows it's not exactly a secure hiding place, but she hopes she can trust the Wrights not to go snooping.

When she moves around the curtain blocking her room from view, Piper is just outside with her arms once more crossed over her front.

‘So,’ she says. ‘Are you at least gonna give me a hint about what you got me?’


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse is content to sip his beer in peace at the Third Rail, but fate has other ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wound up a little moodier than I intended it to be.
> 
> Blame insomnia.

The miasma of spilled beer, stale cigarettes and body odor is ripe in the Third Rail, but already Danse has become accustomed to it. It's as familiar to him as the crumbling, mildew-speckled wallpaper of his apartment. 

He hangs his head low over his glass of stout, catching nobody's eye with a newfound aptitude for blending in.

Time was, he couldn't go anywhere without turning heads — whether it was the thundering footfalls of his power armor or his own bulky frame outside of its confines, he always seemed to stand out. 

He's not so sure he liked it: never quite being able to go incognito amongst his peers. He's even less sure now if he likes the solitude of being a nobody. 

Magnolia’s voice is hypnotic, a little rough around the edges from a night of partying too hard. Danse caught the beginning of the festivities, but not the end. A pulsing migraine drove him home long before anything wild could happen. 

‘Another?’

Whitechapel Charlie hovers on the other side of the bar, wiping out the inside of a glass with a mug. Danse can feel the heat off his thrusters even here and shrinks away a little on reflex. 

He probably shouldn't indulge — he promised himself today would be the day he went out and tried to find some steady work. 

‘Sure.’

Maybe tomorrow.

He drains the last of his drink in time for Charlie to set another down in front of him, the motion sending a little of the liquid spilling over the brim of the glass in a gesture that he's sure is part of the bot’s programming. Realism, or something. 

Magnolia’s sultry singing stops, and eventually the backing music tapers off. Danse hears the click-clack of her heels as she approaches. 

‘Care to wet your whistle, darling?’ Charlie asks, and Danse hears Magnolia’s warm chuckle in response, perhaps a little more hoarse than usual. 

‘Just a seltzer, sweetheart.’

Magnolia sits two seats over, and Danse knows if he took a deep breath now he'd catch her perfume: heady and memorable, just like everything about her. 

‘You didn't stick around for long last night,’ she says, and even though he knows he's being addressed, it still takes a moment to process. 

He lifts his head and meets her eye. 

‘I'm not so good with crowds.’

The corner of Magnolia’s mouth drags up just a little in the faintest hint of a smirk, and he can't help but wonder if she pities him. 

‘Well,’ she says, shaking her head just slightly to dislodge a strand of hair from her vision, ‘we missed you, anyhow.’

Her seltzer arrives, and she takes a sip before standing and swaying off with it into the center of the room. 

He hears her make chit-chat with the other patrons, her husky laughter floating after her. 

Danse turns his attention back to his drink. 

It isn't long before another set of footsteps approaches; he doesn't hear the squeak of the bar stool sagging under the newcomer’s wait as he expects. He pays them as much heed as they pay him. 

‘Hancock around?’

His stomach twists as he recognizes the voice: a surreptitious glance to his left sees a flash of golden hair poking out from underneath a snow-dusted wool hat. 

‘Recovering out back,’ Charlie responds, terse. ‘He told me to give you a bollocking for not showing up last night.’

‘Yeah, yeah. You're a kitten, really.’

Danse shrinks into himself, cradling the glass in front of him like it's worth its weight in gold. Nora’s the last person he was hoping to run into. 

He could almost breathe a sigh of relief when she walks past him the direction of the back room, apparently unaware of his presence. When he glances up to make sure she's gone, she's looking back over her shoulder at him. 

Their eyes meet. 

For a moment he can't quite look away, and he sees the same indecision on her face as she comes to a halt. She worries at her lip awhile, then swivels on her heel. Soon she's striding toward him. 

This time the protest of the bar stool does ring out as she perches on its weathered seat.

‘Day drinking?’ she says, inclining her head towards his glass. ‘Never thought I'd live to see it.’

He thinks maybe it's meant to be playful banter, but instead it just grates on him.

He doesn't want her here — so close beside him, in the Third Rail, in Goodneighbor. He can't call this place _his town_ , but with Nora safely in Diamond City he feels like he can breathe a little easier. 

When she's around, the walls just seem that much closer. 

Danse doesn't answer; that seems like enough of a response in itself. He sees something register on her face that might be irritation, but then she reaches up to whip the cap from her head and as her hair tumbles free, he sees the expression is gone. 

‘I'm gonna say something,’ Nora says, leaning in a little closer than might be strictly social, ‘and you're probably gonna shoot me down straight off, but hear me out.’

His eyes dart down to her hands, one of which rests on her knee so close to his own, the other gripping her knitted cap. She thumbs at a loose thread, probably without realizing. 

‘I'm having a get-together at Christmas,’ she says. ‘Just something small and cozy, close friends. I'd really like it if you could be there.’

Reluctantly, he drags his glance up to meet hers. He used to be able to tell what she was thinking so easily from her expression — to read between the lines, and fill in where her words left off.

He can't tell if she's inviting him out of guilt, or obligation; can't tell if she's already brushed off the kiss as though it never happened. 

He wishes it hadn't. It was easier before. 

‘Thanks,’ he says, ‘but—’

There are a few things he can say here — _but I have other plans_ , which would be a lie; _but I don't want to_ , which skews a little closer to the truth. 

_But I don't think it's such a good idea._

Before he can say it, her hand darts out and grabs his arm, her fingers gripping at the coarse material of his jacket. 

‘I don't want to hear it,’ she says. ‘I'm setting a place for you on the 25th, and either you show or you don't.’

She releases her hold on his sleeve and stands in one fluid motion, leaving him no room to protest as she marches past him on her original path to the back room. 

Danse doesn't look around at her this time, just as he knows she won't look back.

* * *

He finally leaves the Third Rail when the sky is turning dark, his mouth thick with the taste of cheap beer. 

The knowledge that he should have spent the day looking for work gnaws at him, but he manages to swallow down the guilt as he meanders back to the apartment.

Along the way he passes people just beginning their evening: revelers in patched-up gladrags, downtrodden alcoholics who've made it longer than him without a drink to chase away the loneliness. 

Outside the door to his building there's a girl with short dark hair; she leans against the wall, cupping her hand around a cigarette as she tries to light it. 

For just a moment, in the twilight before the street lamps kick in, he thinks she looks a little like Curie — shorter, younger, but with the same angular features and big round doe eyes. 

She looks up as he approaches and he catches sight for the first time of the burns that cover the right side of her face, extending down her neck before vanishing away into the collar of her denim jacket. 

Her eyes are hard when she looks at him; they move past without lingering, scouting the place. She's waiting for someone, and that someone is most certainly not him. 

He walks past, fumbling in his pocket awhile before finding his keys and quietly letting himself in.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curie has the blues; a little girl makes her day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in typical form I spaced out on this over Christmas. I'd intended to have a chapter for Christmas and New Year's, but then a variety of things happened so that never panned out. It didn't feel right to go back and write a holiday chapter so long after the fact; as it turns out, that might work out a little better narratively.

With the cheer of Christmas gone — the decorations along with it — Diamond City is back to the usual humdrum of day to day life. Piper has articles to write; Nora has settlements to check in on; Nick has a desk full of new cases to attend to.

All around Curie, everyone seems to have happily returned to the dull routine, the slow grind of the cogs that make the Jewel of the Commonwealth tick.

Except her.

She suspects this is what they call the winter blues — too little sunlight, and an overabundance of melatonin. Being able to explain it doesn’t make it any more enjoyable.

The book she bought for Danse still sits in her little corner of Piper’s place, wrapped in brown paper and untouched. He never showed up at Christmas; she hasn’t heard a peep from him.

She knows it was silly to spend so much on a whim for a gift that he might not even like — knows it was downright foolish to think that he might come along to Christmas dinner just to see her. She can convince herself that the kiss she saw between Danse and Nora at Thanksgiving meant nothing — especially now that MacCready is back in town — but that doesn’t make it any less of a lie.

Doctor Sun prescribed her a daily walk of an hour around noon, the better to make the most of what little January sun the Commonwealth gets. Most days she just wanders Diamond City and the outskirts of it, never straying far from the guards’ watchful eyes. Today she meanders about the mutfruit orchard in town, trying to keep cheerful in spite of the barren trees, devoid of leaves and fruit alike.

‘They’re kinda pretty, huh? Dormant like that?’

A woman leans at the edge of the fence with a basket under her arm. A little girl — no older than three or four — sits on the fence beside her, with identical inky black hair, olive skin and big hazel eyes. The girl has a tato in her hands, eating messily from it. Her face is covered in red juice but she doesn’t seem to care.

Curie gives the orchard another look with a fresh set of eyes. She supposes the woman is right, in a way: frost glints on the branches like crystal, and without the ugly, mottled leaves of the trees to detract from the shape of them they’re almost ornamental in their frailty.

‘I can see why you would think that,’ she replies. 

The woman smiles, as if to say _of course._

Curie returns to her wandering and the woman to her task. When she makes a loop back around, the woman is still there, as is the girl, but this time the child has replaced the tato in her hands with a hubflower. She holds it delicately, careful not to dirty the petals with her juice-stained fingers.

Curie notices for the first time that the basket is full of the same purple flowers. They look odd somehow; not quite real. She can’t help but linger, trying to peer into the basket from where she stands.

‘We press ‘em and dry ‘em,’ the woman says, tilting the basket so Curie can get a better look. ‘Make for lovely decorations for your home. Or maybe a gift for a special someone…’

Curie feels heat rush to her cheeks; she doesn’t know whether to stammer out that she doesn’t _have_ a special someone, or if that would be oversharing. Then she thinks of Danse, and of how he would probably think such a gift to be terribly frivolous.

She wonders if she should buy one just to be polite. Perhaps Piper would like it.

The little girl seems to have noticed Curie for the first time; she glances up at her, her eyes going wide. With little warning, she turns to her mother and hides her grubby face against the woman’s shoulder, peeping out at Curie beneath a curtain of dark hair.

She murmurs something, and the woman laughs: a hearty, unselfconscious sound that makes Curie feel at ease.

‘She says you’re the prettiest lady she’s ever seen,’ the woman says. ‘She’s not far wrong. Here.’

The woman gently pulls away from her daughter and plucks one of the flowers from her basket, offering it to Curie in an outstretched hand.

‘Since Aya’s taken a shine to you, it don’t feel right to charge you for one.’

Curie shakes her head, but before she can open her mouth to protest the woman extends her hand more insistently.

‘Take it,’ she says.

The flush is back in Curie’s cheeks as she makes her tentative way to the fence. She reaches out to take it; before she can, however, the woman lifts the flower and carefully pokes it into Curie’s hair, just behind her ear.

‘There,’ the woman says, with a note of satisfaction. ‘Pretty flower for a pretty lady.’

Curie is buoyed as she walks home. The entire exchange left her feeling perplexed, but pleasantly so; the little girl had shyly waved as she departed, and Curie couldn’t help but smile and wave back.

When she gets in the door, Piper is packed into the corner of the sofa, using her knees as a support for her notepad as she scribbles furiously into it. She barely glances up when Curie comes in, only acknowledging her once she takes a seat at the far side of the couch.

‘That’s pretty,’ Piper says, her eyes shrewdly taking in the sight of the flower. ‘I thought those things died off around this time of year.’

Curie lifts a hand and delicately checks that the flower is still in place. The petals feel almost like paper, but softer: frail, as though she might turn them to dust if she treats them too roughly. Carefully, she lifts the flower from her hair and cradles it in her hand.

‘It looked nice like that,’ Piper says.

When Curie looks up, she finds her friend watching her closely. She feels the first treacherous prickle of heat in her cheeks; distracting herself, she stands and moves to her corner of the room, carefully laying the flower on her bedside table.

‘There was a woman selling them by the orchard,’ Curie says, slipping back around the curtain into the main room. ‘She gave one to me.’

Piper drums her pen against the spine of her notepad absently. She’s looking at Curie but not quite seeing, her eyes distantly on Curie’s hair.

Self-conscious, Curie lifts a hand to check her head.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asks hurriedly.

‘What?’

Piper shakes her head; her eyes come focussed finally. With a little sigh, she sets her notepad and pen aside on the sofa.

‘I’m taking you out this weekend,’ she says. She has that tone that says she won’t take no for an answer. ‘You and me, dolled up to the nines.’

Curie wrinkles her nose. The last time she let Piper dress her for a night out, it had been Halloween and her skirt had been a little too short for comfort.

‘I don’t know, Piper…’

Piper all but glares at her. She lifts a hand and points an accusatory finger at Curie, waggling it.

‘Uh-uh,’ she says. ‘You don’t get a say in this. I need an excuse to let my hair down and I’m not going without a wingman.’

Curie doesn’t understand the reference; she doesn’t bother looking for an explanation.

Grudgingly, she sighs and lifts her shoulders in a shrug.

‘All right,’ she says, reluctantly. ‘But I’m not wearing a dress this time. It is far too cold.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it bad that I already came up with a backstory for Aya and her mom? Why do I have to keep getting attached to characters I introduce for all of five minutes...


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Curie's night out turns into a double date, and Danse has the misfortune of bearing witness to it from afar.

The treads on Danse’s boots are almost worn down to nothing; when he steps in puddles he can feel the water seeping in.

It’s been a long, hard few weeks — as cold, wet and miserable as it was dangerous — but at least he knows the payout will be good. 

He readjusts his hold on his rifle as he goes, still getting to grips with the heft of it. It’s no Righteous Authority, that’s for sure.

The mercenary hired to guard the caravan alongside him is a mouthy guy, spewing profanity like he can’t help himself. Danse sees the way he eyes up the brahmin, the way his eyes linger sometimes on the saddlebags weighted down with goods. Danse has been keeping an especially close watch on him.

The urban area is finally in sight, crumbling skyscrapers and cracked blacktop, so he won’t have to worry about that much longer; once the caravan reaches their final stop, they won’t be his burden any more.

* * *

The first thing he does is shower. The water’s tepid, as expected, but at least it washes away the worst of weeks of grime. It’s not much of an existence, living on the road, but he’s used to it: used to bathing in rad-filled streams or not at all, used to taking the grass for his pillow. 

Escorting caravans isn’t ideal, but the pay is decent enough — if you can get them to where they’re going, of course.

He owes Hancock for putting a good word in for him. Danse knows as well as the ghoul that he certainly didn’t have to.

Once the topmost layers of dirt have spiralled away into the drain, he dresses in the cosiest, most indulgent clothes he owns — a warm, well-worn flannel shirt, baggy jeans and a pair of fleece-lined boots.

The caravan arrived around noon; he had to make his own way back to Goodneighbor from there, and by the time he got in it was dark out. He knows he should rest — should make up for weeks of crappy, patchy sleep — but he can’t wind down. The sound of the din outside his window as the town comes to life is an unwanted distraction, but it draws him inexorably downstairs to the street.

There are few choices of venue in Goodneighbor: there’s the Hotel Rexford, the mainstay for junkies and dealers alike, then there’s the Third Rail. He feels like he knows the route to the latter like the back of his own hand, he’s walked it so often.

As he goes, he recognizes some of the faces he passes and wonders if they know him by name now, if they know his story.

Magnolia’s out tonight; some jazz trio plays the Third Rail in her stead. The music they play is moody and heavy, which suits him just fine.

‘You made it back in one piece, eh?’

Whitechapel Charlie sounds only mildly surprised, but that might be down to his programming. Danse asks for his usual order and takes a seat at the bar, ducking his head low in the universal symbol not to be disturbed.

It’d be just his luck to run into Nora tonight; a twisted part of him wants to.

The first sip of rye is impossibly dry, a welcome change from the sharp tang of bootleg booze going on the caravan run. He chases it quickly with another, and another, and soon his glass is empty before it occurs to him he ought to pace himself.

He orders a second.

The band takes a request from the crowd: something jaunty, discordant. It makes his head ring. Reflexively he brings a hand up to his head and pinches the bridge of his nose.

When the song eventually dies down, the voices of the crowd fill the void.

Amid the gravel-tone of the ghouls and the slur of the human patrons, he thinks he hears a voice he recognizes: loud and unabashed, always on the knife-edge of annoying. He knows who it belongs to before he looks, but he glances up anyway just to be sure.

Piper Wright stands at the bottom of the stairs leading from street level, shrugging her jacket off to reveal the blood red dress beneath. Someone stands at her side, and the sight of her makes something clench in Danse’s chest.

Curie.

He hasn’t seen her in almost two months — not since Thanksgiving. He thinks she looks a little different than he remembers and he realizes her hair has gotten longer. She wears something purple in it, contrasting with the dark locks: a flower.

They find themselves a small table, one of the few remaining. 

It’s busy tonight, bound only to get busier still. He wonders if he should slip out now before they’ve settled in, or wait until there’s more of a crowd.

He feels a pang of guilt. Since when was he the type to sneak around, avoiding people?

Since Nora, that’s when.

That’s a long, painful avenue that he’s not quite ready to go down — at least not until he has a few more drinks under his belt.

He watches the two women surreptitiously, grateful for the dim lighting that keeps him incognito for the moment. There’s a good chance they might not see him at all, if he keeps a low enough profile.

It’s just dawning on him that they’ll eventually have to come to the bar to order when he hears the sound of feet coming down the steps from up top. Piper’s voice, which had been at a more manageable level blending in with the rest of the crowd, picks up: she calls out to whoever just arrived.

Danse can’t help the curiosity that compels him to twist and look over at their table. Curie has just risen to her feet; he watches her nervously smooth down the thighs of her pants, then the black blouse that leaves her slender collarbones bare.

A man and a woman approach their table; the woman embraces Piper with a kiss on the cheek, then there’s a round of bashful introductions. Even from here, Danse can see Curie’s face flush as the man shakes her hand.

Danse’s stomach drops, yet he can’t quite place why. It isn’t until the man takes a seat beside Curie that he recognizes the feeling.

Heat prickles at his skin, at the collar of his shirt. Without even realizing, he clenches his hands into fists.

He shakes his head; looks away, focussing on the drinks behind the bar. He knows he has no right to feel this way. More than that — there’s no need for it. They’re just friends.

Yet…

When he can’t help but look back over, he studies the man. He has sandy blond hair, neatly parted and styled into place. He wears a dress shirt — probably laboriously pressed into some semblance of neatness. The woman is similarly done up, in a dress that shows off her ample chest. Her long, flame-red hair tumbles down her shoulders in curls that bounce every time she leans in and says something to Piper.

If he didn’t know better, he’d think they were on a double-date; in fact, he’d put good caps on it.

‘Another one?’

The bot’s voice is an unwelcome distraction: a reminder that he’s not here for Curie, and she most certainly isn’t here for him.

He drags his glance back to Charlie, ready to refuse, when he spots that his glass is empty. He hadn’t noticed himself drinking it.

‘Sure,’ he says, pushing the glass forward. It’s a dialogue they’ve played out many times before.

The condensation beaded on its surface leaves a trail of moisture on the chipped surface of the bar. When his refill arrives, he promptly engrosses himself in it.

It isn’t long before the inevitable happens and he hears the tap of high-heel shoes approaching. He has enough time to spot Piper and Curie before he has the good sense to duck his head once more, looking away while they place their order.

‘So, what do you think?’

Piper’s voice is hushed — as hushed as the reporter can get, given her tendency toward boisterousness. Even so, Danse can hear the excitement in her words.

‘I don’t know,’ Curie replies. 

Piper groans in frustration; Danse can just about picture the look on her face. They’ve never been close, but she’s memorable.

‘You don’t _know_ ,’ Piper prompts, ‘or you’re just too shy to _say_?’

There’s an awkward little pause between them, broken by the clink of bottles as Charlie sets their order down in front of them. Danse fights the urge to look up.

‘He is… He is very nice.’

Another groan from Piper.

‘Come _on_ ,’ she says, exasperated. ‘You gotta gimme more than that. He’s cute, right?’

In the silence that follows, Danse finds himself stilling in anticipation of Curie’s response. Even as he does so, he knows he’s doing something he shouldn’t — knows that Curie would likely feel betrayed to discover that he was listening in on a private conversation. 

That doesn’t stop him, however; doesn’t lessen the sting any when her response comes, either.

‘ _Very_ much so.’

Piper chuckles, and Curie’s own soft laughter rings out in response. Their conversation turns to other things as they pick up their order and move away, but by then Danse’s attention is on his drink once more.

He knocks it back; this time, he doesn’t wait for Charlie to ask before ordering another.

* * *

Everything’s a little fuzzy around the edges. Danse knows if he stands up right now, the line he takes on a quick retreat out of the bar won’t be the straightest.

If pressed why he’s still here, he couldn’t have said for certain: to keep an eye on proceedings, perhaps. More than likely it’s just morbid curiosity.

On many of the dozens of times he has looked over at the group’s table, Curie and her date have been deep in conversation with one another, apparently hitting it off. When he sees the guy rest his arm across the back of Curie’s chair and she doesn’t brush it off, he decides it’s time to leave.

Danse’s hands are unsteady as he forks out the caps to settle up his tab; he’s not sure if it’s the alcohol, or if he’s just in a hurry to get away.

He’s halfway across the floor when Curie says his name: he thinks he hears uncertainty in her voice. Maybe she was hoping she wouldn’t run into him.

He considers just walking on and acting as though he didn’t hear her, but by then his pace has slowed just enough to be conspicuous. He turns his step into a pivot and turns around to face her.

‘Oh,’ he says, in his very best approximation of surprise. ‘Curie. I didn’t see you there.’

There’s a moment of silence where everybody at her table peers up at him and he wonders if they all know that’s a lie. After it stretches on just a beat too long, Curie pushes her chair back and makes as if to stand.

‘Would you like to join us?’ she asks. There’s a strain to her voice; in it, he reads all that he needs to. She’s just asking to be polite.

‘No,’ he says bluntly.

Even if he wanted to, he already drank too much — he knows sticking around would be a bad idea of epic proportions.

Curie looks taken aback for a moment and Danse can’t help but glance at her date to catch his reaction. His expression of mild bemusement shifts into something else — distrust, maybe. Whatever it is, he’d probably be happier with Danse gone.

Danse just about manages to mumble out something about wishing them a good night before turning and resuming his exit, taking the stairs to the surface two at a time.

He doesn’t get far before a grating voice calls out to him and, much as he’d like to ignore it, he stops and turns. Piper hasn’t bothered to don her jacket, but she seems unperturbed by the cold. Her jaw is set in annoyance.

‘What’s up with _you_?’

Danse doesn’t quite meet her eye; instead he focuses on a loose strand of hair where it has fallen from her hairstyle, dangling by her ear.

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

At this, Piper laughs: loud and abrupt, and entirely without mirth.

‘That little brush-off down there?’ she says, gesturing in the direction of the entrance. ‘You disappear without a goodbye to anybody, then you can’t even give Curie the time of day?’

Confusion blooms within him: Curie had only asked him to stick around out of obligation. Hadn’t she?

Her date certainly hadn’t seemed eager for him to be there.

‘I took a contract with a caravan,’ he says. ‘I was out of the Commonwealth.’

Piper shakes her head, the picture of exasperation. A moment later she’s marching over to him, prodding him in the shoulder.

‘You missed _Christmas_ , Danse,’ she says. ‘Curie threw down a small fortune on a shiny gift for you, you know that? All she got me was a new cap and she _lives_ with me.’

Danse blinks.

He didn’t do the whole Christmas thing this year, not that he was ever much of a fan. What was the point?

‘What did she get me?’ he asks, a little gruffer than intended.

Piper’s sweeps him with one shrewd, appraising glance. She doesn’t seem convinced by his deflection.

‘Uh-uh,’ she says. ‘You wanna know, you ask her yourself.’

To anyone watching it probably seems like a standoff — the reporter staring him down, while he shrinks back with his hands shoved into his pockets. Even though he’s taller than her — taller than most, admittedly — her presence dominates him. He doesn’t know how anyone ever manages to tell her no.

She sighs then, backing down with a resigned shake of her head.

‘I know you went through some heavy stuff with Nora,’ she says, and for once there’s no pressure there — no agenda. Just two friends, speaking on the level. ‘And I get it, you’re still figuring things out about… y’know, the synth thing. But you can’t keep pushing everybody away.’

He had flinched at the mention of the word ‘synth’; even now it’s a knee jerk reaction, like having a slur flung in his face. There are few around who know his story, and those who do tend to leave him well enough alone. He wishes Piper would do the same.

‘I’m not pushing anybody away,’ he says. _There’s nobody to push._

‘Yeah, well try telling that to Curie next time you see her.’

She has a point. Unfortunately.

He slips his hand free of his pocket and lifts it to scratch through the short hairs at the nape of his neck. For just a little while longer, Piper watches him — as though she expects another round of excuses. When it never comes, she nods her head just slightly.

‘Just…’

She trails off, and Danse wonders if this might be the first time he’s seen her lost for words.

‘Just try to let her down gentle, huh?’ she says. ‘You at least owe her that.’

It doesn’t strike him until later — when he’s lying awake, counting the cracks in the ceiling above his bed — that he isn’t sure what Piper meant by her last words to him before leaving.

He thinks of Curie’s date, and the rosy tint to her cheeks when they had been speaking to one another: he thinks of the way she had seemed so awkward when she realized Danse had been at the Third Rail all along.

He’s still trying to riddle it out when he eventually drifts off; the more he repeats the refrain that they’re just friends, the less convincing it sounds even to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking of maybe delving into what happened between Danse and Nora in a separate fic, since (as per usual!) I've spent about 75% of the time I'm supposed to be writing this story coming up with their history together.
> 
> Also, I should probably tag this as slow burn. I planned for shippiness to happen over Christmas but hey, now you get to wait even longer!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curie goes on her first official date.

The first thing Curie notices when she hugs Jim in greeting is the smell of his aftershave.

She knows there must still bottles of it lying around — well past their sell-by date, but still perfectly functional — yet the scent catches her off guard. It has a hint of spice to it, something implacable but pleasant. She wonders how he happened upon a bottle of the stuff.

‘You look great,’ Jim says, taking in her outfit as he pulls away. If she hadn’t already been a little self conscious after catching herself _smelling_ him, she’s certainly blushing now.

She had agonized for a long while over what to wear to this — her first official date, just the two of them this time. Piper had sagely suggested that whatever she chose, she should make sure to wear her best lingerie underneath, _just in case._ Curie had swatted her way, spluttering with embarrassment.

She had enlisted Nora’s help in the end, grateful for her decidedly more decorous approach. Nora picked out one of Curie’s skirts, long and black and hugging tight on the hips, and had generously offered her own beige cowl neck sweater to go with it. She finished off the look with thick stockings — ‘No point in freezing to death until you get to know the guy a bit better,’ she had said — and a pair of heeled boots.

Curie knew that the skirt had been mended and patched so often that it probably contained more thread than material, and the boots were old and mottled, but she didn’t think someone who had grown up in the wasteland would judge her. She supposes, if his compliment was sincere, that she had been right.

He wears a shirt again this evening, a plum-colored one that brings out the paleness of his skin and the blue of his eyes. Thankfully she manages to stop staring before he can catch her in the act.

They sit down side by side at Takahashi’s place, and she tries her best not to think of when she had sat here with Danse.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t take you someplace fancier,’ he says, and they both laugh. Their options are decidedly limited.

‘Do you come to Diamond City very often?’ she asks, toying with a loose corner of the formica covering the countertop in front of her. ‘Piper mentioned you do not live around here.’

Jim shakes his head.

‘I’m looking for a place here, though,’ he replies. ‘I live out in Oberland Station, so it’s kind of a pain to trek all the way out here whenever I’m looking for work.’

She remembers the early days, when Nora had begun the admirable task of setting up a network between the various settlements dotted around the Commonwealth. Traveling from place to place had been no small feat: if it wasn’t Raiders it was Super Mutants, and if they somehow managed to avoid attack there was always the constant threat of a rad storm to contend with.

‘You didn’t have to go to so much trouble to come here,’ she says. She feels bad for not offering to meet somewhere in the middle.

Jim flashes a smile so broad and kind that she feels her skin tingle.

‘Don’t say that,’ he says. He reaches out, taking her hand in his. ‘You’re worth it.’

* * *

They met for an early meal, while it was still light out; by the time they finish talking the sun has set, the lights of the city coming to life around them.

‘You think it’s a little late to go for a stroll?’ he asks, glancing up at the sky.

There are threats outside the walls of the city, as always, but Curie has a laser pistol in her backpack and Jim seems like he can look after himself.

‘Maybe,’ she says, but even as she speaks she gets to her feet. ‘Sometimes it does not hurt to live a little dangerously.’

They stick to the outer perimeter of the city, walking close beside one another. Curie spots the gun at his hip for the first time: a revolver, sitting in an embossed holster.

‘I like walking at night,’ he says, a faint smile on his lips as he speaks. ‘Everything’s a lot more peaceful. When you’re not being attacked, of course.’

Curie chuckles; she can attest to that.

‘Do you know,’ she says, ‘that there was a time when you could not see all the stars spilling out across the sky? There used to be so many lights in the cities that you almost could not see any at night.’

When he looks at her he seems impressed, if a little confused.

‘Who told you that?’

She regrets mentioning it — Jim doesn’t know she’s a synth, not yet. Likewise, until she drops that particular bombshell, he won’t know about her origins. It was Doctor Collins who told her about the stars: who used to say that if anything good came of the end of the world, it was that the Earth might finally be rid of light pollution. She can’t think of a way of explaining it without broaching a difficult conversation.

‘No one,’ she says hurriedly, with a smile and a shake of her head. ‘I think I read it once.’

They make a couple of laps of the place, learning more about each other all the while. He tells her of how he originally came from the Capital — she skirts around her history, evasively telling him that she used to live in Vault 81. He looks surprised.

‘You don’t seem like a Vaultie,’ he says, with an appraising glance. He doesn’t sound derisive, as she knows some people can be about vault dwellers. ‘I guess, come to think of it — there is something about you that’s not like everybody else. Timeless.’

It’s a romantic way of putting it; it makes her feel like some treasure from the old world. As she blushes and glances away bashfully, she wonders what he’ll think when she inevitably tells him the truth.

They’re near the entrance to the city again when the night chill settles in and Curie can’t help but shiver. Rather than make another loop, Jim stops and tentatively touches her cheek.

‘You’re cold,’ he says.

The concern in his voice makes her tremble; suddenly it feels like they’re the only two people in the world. He has an intense look in his blue eyes, even as he steps in close and kisses her.

She expects fireworks — a hammering heart, goosebumps — and she’s disappointed when they don’t appear. She can’t help but look upon the kiss scientifically: his technique seems acceptable, and she responds to his cues in turn.

The kiss is merely… _nice_.

When they separate, a wry little smile plays across Jim’s lips. He brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and lets his hand linger, cupping her cheek.

‘I had a really great time,’ he says.

She pauses. While she’s trying to work through her conflicted feelings, she can at least admit that she enjoyed herself.

‘As did I.’

He walks her back to Piper’s house; along the way he brushes his hand against hers occasionally as if to try to hold it, but she busies herself instead by wrapping her arms around her chest to keep warm.

At the door, he leans casually against the frame.

‘I feel like I’m getting a little ahead of myself,’ he says, ‘but I’d love to see you again.’

She nods.

‘Of course.’

They don’t make any plans — just a simple promise to get in contact next time he’s in town. Curie lets herself into the house and moves to the sofa, sinking into it.

‘So?’

Piper stands at the foot of the stairs, looking at her expectantly. Curie wonders if she would have waited up all night, had it come to it.

‘So what?’ Curie counters.

Piper sighs and crosses the room, sitting down beside her.

‘You _know_ what. How’d it go?’

She knows Piper expects her to give all the details — right down to a blow-by-blow of the kiss — but Curie suddenly feels tired. She gives her friend a wan smile, lifting her shoulders in a shrug.

‘It was nice,’ she says. ‘He was very nice.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jim's nice, huh?
> 
> Just so... _nice_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse meets with a caravan agent; he can't quite seem to walk out of Diamond City without things getting complicated.

_Looking for work? Good with guns? We want YOU!_  
_see the world — seasonal & contract work — great pay_  
_Join Eastwick Caravans Today!_

Danse sits perched at the edge of a sofa in the Dugout Inn, throwing glances toward the entrance from time to time. The caravan agent had said she would meet him here to discuss terms with him.

He arrived twenty minutes early; he’s been waiting almost twice that.

Every moment he lingers feels like too much. He had wanted to meet elsewhere, but the caravan agent had been insistent that she wouldn’t set foot in Goodneighbor. It’s unfortunate: he feels too conspicuous here, even with his cap pulled low on his head. All it would take is for a Brotherhood squad on rec leave to stroll through the door, and everything would be over.

He sticks to soda while he waits, although the sight of amber filling the glass of a nearby patron has his mouth watering. It’s too much temptation, too early in the day. He knows it wouldn’t make the best of impressions to meet with the agent surrounded by a cloud of liquor fumes.

There’s a clock above the bar, battered and worn but still keeping time. She’s twenty-five minutes late now. Maybe the general populace isn’t as punctual as the Brotherhood always were, but something feels off.

He sighs and gets to his feet, taking a couple of steps this way and that before facing the exit. He knows there’s still time for her to show — maybe she got held up on the way, or maybe he got the appointment wrong…

An insidious little voice in his head tells him that he should assume the worst. He tries to ignore it.

As he’s about ready to leave, he hears neat, clipped footsteps enter the Dugout. A woman appears around the corner a moment later and glances about the place before he waves her over.

‘Claire Phillips,’ she says, shaking his hand. She wears a pantsuit, cleaner and better maintained than anything he owns. ‘Sorry to keep you. Somebody really should do something about the Raider gangs around here.’

There’s a gun in a holster at her waist, the flap unfastened. He’d wager that she used it recently.

She sits at the edge of the sofa and turns to face him, fishing a notebook out from the bag slung over her shoulder.

‘So,’ she says. ‘Mister… Danse, was it? How about we get started.’

* * *

Claire seems impressed by his military background; he artfully manages to avoid specifying that he served with the Brotherhood.

When she asks if there’s anything tying him to the Commonwealth, he responds with a resounding ‘No.’

She has paperwork for him to complete, maps for him to commit to memory, and information about some of the people he’ll be traveling with. It’s a lot to take in, and he feels a little like he’s struggling to keep his head above water as she talks him through the caravan’s itinerary for the next few months.

 _Months._ It’ll be late summer when they get back. So much can change in that time.

He signs his name on the dotted line.

She shakes his hand again at the end of it all and gives him a genuinely warm smile; unlike the last caravan he ran with, Eastwick seems a lot more organized, but there’s still a personal touch to it.

Maybe that’s just a line they spin to suck you in.

Once she’s gone, he orders himself a beer. He earned it.

The mealy, bitter taste of the dregs is barely off his tongue when he forces himself to stand, to leave, before the temptation comes in again to have _just one more_. He feels good as he goes, with a folder of caravan paperwork tucked under his arm. Like he just made the right decision, for once.

He makes it as far as the stairs leading to the exit out of the city before Nora catches up to him, calling his name all the while.

‘Geez,’ she says. The first thing he spots is that her usually crisp white blouse is disheveled. ‘I’ve been yelling at you since you left the Dugout.’

He doesn’t want to stop here; doesn’t want to stop at all. He shoots a longing glance at the entryway leading out of town before giving Nora his full attention.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a lot on my plate.’

She points to the folder he holds, one dark, perfectly groomed eyebrow raising in curiosity.

‘I can see that,’ she replies.

Danse knows this is his cue to fill her in, but suddenly he’s too tired to go through the routine with her — to play out all the steps of their tentative friendship. He shuffles the folder over to his other hand and hugs it close to his chest.

‘How are you?’ he asks. It’s meant as a genuine inquiry, but even to his own ears it sounds insincere.

‘I broke up with RJ.’

The silence that follows is heavy: Nora seems to be waiting for a response for him, and all he can do is blink at her. He wonders if he should console her, but then she clears her throat and cards a hand through her long blonde hair.

‘Well, I guess it was mutual,’ she says. ‘Better for both of us.’

Months earlier his heart might have leapt at this revelation; might have craved it. He’d held no ill will towards MacCready for the way things had played out, but seeing Nora on his arm so soon after everything hadn’t been easy.

In the time it takes for Nora to toss her hair over her shoulder and look up at him expectantly, he realizes what this should mean to him — and what it _doesn’t_.

‘Sorry to hear that,’ he says.

She wets her lips with her tongue and shifts her weight from foot to foot. He’s not used to seeing her so uncertain, so vulnerable. Even when she rushed to his team’s aid at the police station months earlier, she had had a hard edge to her — like nothing in the Commonwealth had the power to knock her down. It had taken him a long time to tease her story out of her.

‘Yeah,’ she says flatly.

There’s a silence that seems as though it might never end; his legs twitch, urging him to leave. When Nora doesn’t stop him, he turns and sets off on his way.

‘I wonder sometimes if you ever really loved me.’

The words stop him in his tracks. He isn’t sure if it’s anger or hurt that makes his hands tremble as he turns to face her; right now, after everything, this feels too much like a mindgame. Maybe she wants him to convince her that she’s wrong; maybe she wants him to convince her that he still loves her.

Instead he stands and stares at her, watching the quiver of her lip as she fights to hide it.

He realizes then that she isn’t trying to manipulate him.

‘Maybe if my timing was better, we’d still be together,’ she says, running her hand absently up and down her other arm. ‘You needed something I never gave you, and I asked for too much.’

He tries not to think of that day — of the way the sunlight had caught the perfect gold of her hair, even as she had turned and walked away.

‘I don’t know.’

He means it; he still thinks about what they had sometimes, and how he would have done it all differently if he could go back. In every scenario he plays out, they always seem to be doomed.

‘I’m leaving the Commonwealth,’ he says. His throat tightens a little as he forces the words out. ‘A few months, maybe more. I got work with a caravan.’

If Nora is surprised, she doesn’t say anything. Her eyes flash once more towards the folder in his grasp.

‘Eastwick, right? I’ve seen the posters.’

Danse nods.

‘It’s a big commitment,’ she says. ‘You sure about this?’

 _Sure about leaving? Or sure about leaving_ you _?_

‘Yeah. I’m sure.’

She inclines her head slightly. All at once he wishes he could see what’s going on inside her head, and yet he’s glad he can’t. Maybe if she said whatever she’s mulling around right now, it’d be enough to convince him to stay. Maybe he doesn’t want to be convinced.

‘You look after yourself, Danse,’ she says.

Her arms are folded across her chest. She gives a smile that doesn’t seem to warm the chill of her blue eyes, and turns her back to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All things going to plan, expect an update each day through the 14th :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curie meets with Jim at the Dugout Inn; Jim runs into an old friend.

The Dugout Inn has never looked so festive: red and pink paper hearts hang from the ceiling, twisting this way and that in a stray breeze leaking in from under the door. Even the music befits the holiday, with Diamond City Radio pumping out love song after love song.

February 12th. Two days until Valentine’s. While Vadim Bobrov already seems to be caught up in the spirit of the occasion — using it as an excuse to unleash an onslaught of cringe-inducing pickup lines on patrons — the usual clientele sit nursing their drinks in solitude.

Curie is well aware of the impending date; Piper has been pestering her about it for the better part of the past week.

She sits across from Jim, taking absent sips of her drink while he regales her with tales from his childhood. He hasn’t asked her to do anything for Valentine’s Day yet, but she can feel it coming — from the way he had murmured surprise at the festive decorations, to the comments he keeps making about the music on the radio.

Piper has plans for the 14th, of course — she and Genevieve are going for a picnic. It sounds like a lovely idea.

‘I forget,’ Jim says. She drags her eyes from their wandering back to his face. ‘Did you say you went to school in Vault 81?’

There it is: that pang of dread. She knows that the longer she puts off telling him the truth, it’s only going to make things worse. Yet even now, as she flounders to come up with an answer, she can’t quite spit the revelation out.

‘I did not go to school,’ she says eventually. ‘I learned everything that I know from a scientist. He was like a father to me.’

All true. So why is that knot still there in her stomach?

Jim nods. He takes in every word she says in that thoughtful way of his. The last time a man had shown so much interest in anything she had to say, it had been Danse — a thought which she puts promptly from her head.

‘You told me there were no schools where you grew up,’ she says. ‘Was that very difficult?’

Jim lifts his shoulders in a shrug, taking a sip of his beer. When he sets the bottle down he’s careful to place it on the stained coaster on the table.

‘I guess sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like,’ he says, thumbing over the neck of his beer bottle. ‘Don’t get me wrong, my parents made sure to teach me all they could, and me and the other kids picked up stuff from traders and travelers who came through. I guess I just see how good the kids have it here, you know?’ 

Curie never had a childhood; whatever memories her synth body may have had implanted once upon a time are gone, lost long before she ever came to occupy it. She saw so many generations learn in the classroom in the confines of Vault 81, however; she can imagine what it must feel like to have never had that opportunity.

‘The children in Vault 81 seemed to hate school,’ she says, with a wry little smile.

She’s thinking of Austin, in particular — how often he had expressed distaste for mandatory lessons. If it hadn’t been for him, she never would have left the vault.

Jim opens his mouth to reply, but a hand lands on his shoulder and Curie follows it up its arm to see a man standing behind him. She doesn’t recognize him, but when Jim twists to look up at him he immediately springs from his chair and the two embrace, clapping each other on the back.

‘Davy!’ Jim says, pulling away and looking the other man over as if in disbelief.

‘In the flesh!’

Before Curie has a chance to feel awkward, Jim turns and gestures to her.

‘Curie,’ he says, ‘this is Davy, an old friend of mine. We spent some time on the road together.’

‘Curie?’ Davy echoes. ‘Good to meet you.’

He leans down and extends his arm so Curie doesn’t have to get up; they shake hands briefly before his attention is back on Jim.

‘You in town for long?’

‘Just for the day,’ Jim says. He shoots a look at Curie — an apologetic little smile — then claps Davy on the shoulder. ‘Listen, man. I’m… _kinda_ busy right now. But we should meet up tomorrow and catch up, yeah?’

Curie shakes her head, lifting a hand to interrupt.

‘Not at all, please,’ she says, gesturing to an empty seat. ‘You two have not seen each other in a very long time?’

Davy shrugs.

‘The woman’s not wrong.’

Jim looks hesitant; Curie’s grateful that he doesn’t seem so quick to interrupt their date, but she’s relieved when he eventually nods his head.

‘All right, fine,’ he says. ‘Just for a little while. But drinks are on you.’

* * *

Jim does his best to keep Curie included in the conversation, but it’s difficult to keep up with all the in-jokes and references the two keep throwing around. It’s a little like listening to a foreign language: everything certainly sounds like words, but she can’t follow along.

‘You still in Oberland?’ Davy asks, sipping from his third beer.

Jim tips his head.

‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Unfortunately. You heard anything from Maher?’

The exchange might have passed Curie by, had Davy not suddenly slammed his hand down on the table.

‘Ohhhh, wait, wait, _wait_ — you didn’t hear?’

Curie watches the way Jim perks up a little, his eyes wide. She finds herself sucked into the emotion of the moment: finds herself curious about this Maher, too.

‘Maher was a _synth_.’

There’s a deathly silence around the table; Curie feels that icy inevitability settle in, and Jim looks as though his jaw couldn’t drop any further if he unscrewed it.

‘Serious?’ Jim prompts. He leans forward, all ears. ‘Since when?’

‘Since he went haywire after the Institute blew up,’ Davy says, leaning in his well. He drops his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. ‘He started shooting up the place. Had to be put down.’

‘Should’ve known,’ Jim says. ‘He always was creepy. So he’s dead, huh?’

He whistles, a low, drawn-out sound. When he settles back into his chair he’s shaking his head; Curie notices he’s smiling.

All at once the Dugout seems too small, too loud. Curie recognizes this feeling — it’s something she never could have understood before getting her synth body. The last time she felt it was at Halloween, when she had needed Danse to lead her outside.

‘Good riddance, anyhow,’ Davy says. ‘The less of those freaks left in the Commonwealth, the better.’

Their voices become white noise to Curie; she’s heard it all before, sometimes overheard, more often than not meant for her ears. It doesn’t make it any easier to remind herself that Jim doesn’t know what she is.

She had tried to imagine the conversation they might have about it someday: how she would quietly pull him aside after one of their dates, and begin by telling him about the experiment in Vault 81. She had known it would be an awkward discussion, and she had always expected him to express dismay over being lied to, but this…

It’s different. It makes her feel sick.

She’s about to stand up to get fresh air when a tall figure casts its shadow over her. She notices the man’s hands first, hanging at his sides, scarred and weathered. When she drags her eyes up to his face, the little thrill that goes through her is unexpected: dizzying.

‘Monsieur Danse?’

He doesn’t bother with a greeting.

‘Is everything okay?’

She blinks at him uncertainly. She doesn’t know what he could mean until he shoots a glance over at the two men at the table — when she looks at Jim, his eyes are trained on Danse.

‘Do you mind?’ Jim asks. ‘This is a private conversation.’

Curie expects Danse to take the cue to leave; she’s inexplicably pleased when he doesn’t.

‘Private conversation or not, you’re clearly making Curie uncomfortable.’

Curie feels eyes on her: Jim’s, as well as Davy’s.

‘What makes you say that?’ Jim counters.

Curie’s never seen him like this, filled with a hot rage. It’s a far cry from the quiet, thoughtful side he usually shows.

‘Don’t tell me _you’re_ a synth,’ Davy interjects.

She can tell from the levity of his tone that it’s meant to defuse the tension, but from the look on his face he seems to have realized it was a mistake.

A long, awkward silence follows; the longer it spans, the more certain Curie becomes that Jim knows the truth. She searches his eyes for the inevitable recognition there, but he’s not looking at her — he’s looking at Danse.

‘Yeah,’ Danse says. ‘I’m a synth. But I’m not the one making a scene here.’

Slowly, with a stillness that leaves Curie feeling cold, Jim rises to his feet. He steps around the table between them and stands in front of Danse.

‘You need to back the hell off, buddy,’ Jim says.

Curie feels like she’s watching it all from afar; she sees Davy rise to his feet and move to back Jim up, and slowly the other patrons are starting to take notice of the disturbance. Danse’s jaw is set in a way that tells her he has no intention of leaving, and she can see disaster ahead as sure as the coming of the rain.

‘No,’ she interrupts, her eyes locked on Jim. ‘ _You_ need to back off.’

Looking back, she’ll see the precise moment she set things in motion; now, she fails to register the little smirk on Jim’s face when he turns his back on them, the way he balls his hand into a fist. Even as he twists, throwing his weight into a punch, she can’t quite seem to process it in time to do anything.

Jim’s fist connects with Danse’s face just as Curie starts to jump to her feet. She barely has time to throw herself between them before he’s pulling his arm back for another.

‘Stop!’ she shouts. The sound carries across the inn; anybody who wasn’t paying attention to their little drama most certainly is now. ‘Get out. _Now._ ’

She thinks Jim might try to throw another punch, but Davy’s tugging at the back of his shirt a moment later.

‘Let’s just go, man,’ he says. ‘She’s not worth it.’

Jim gives Curie a pointed glance. What had been such a friendly face once, so unassuming, seems bitter and arrogant now. She turns away, laying a hand on Danse’s arm.

‘Are you all right?’

She hears Jim muttering some choice swears as he leaves, but she pays him no heed. Danse’s lip is bleeding; he seems otherwise unscathed.

He straightens out his shirt, then checks his lip. He frowns a little when his finger comes away bloodied.

‘I’m fine,’ he says.

She wonders if she should ask for a first aid kit, but Danse is already pulling away, shooting a glance toward the clock above the bar. She hadn’t realized how late it was; Davy must have been chatting with them for longer than it had seemed.

‘Do you have to be somewhere?’

He shakes his head. His eyes flit to the rental room at the far side of the inn.

‘I’m… meeting somebody early tomorrow. Made more sense to stay in town than to travel over from Goodneighbor.’

It pops into her head that the ‘somebody’ he’s meeting might be Nora, and she feels heat rise to her cheeks. She wonders why she cares.

‘I’m sorry I ruined your evening,’ Danse says suddenly. He lifts a hand and rubs at the back of his neck, not quite meeting her eye. ‘I heard what they were saying, and you looked so uncomfortable…’

Anger prickles at the edges of her consciousness in memory of everything that happened, unfamiliar and unpleasant. To Curie, it’s no better than the sick feeling of dread she had whenever she thought of telling Jim the truth. She supposes she doesn’t have to, now.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says. The smile that scarcely warms the corners of her mouth is supposed to be a reassuring one, however frail it might be. ‘He had it coming.’

Danse’s brow furrows.

‘Maybe.’

Curie looks at the table beside them, still littered with glasses and bottles. Her own drink is barely half-empty.

She wonders, glumly, what she’ll tell Piper.

The inn has returned to its usual rhythm: the clink of beer bottles, and the hum of chatter. The colorful heart decorations that had seemed so quaint earlier are now oppressive and garish.

When she looks at Danse, her glance lingers on the dark bead of blood already coagulating on his lip. It’s a small cut — no doubt it will heal soon — yet it seems to represent so much more.

_Yeah. I’m a synth._

He had said the words that she couldn’t.

‘I will let you get some rest,’ she says, gathering up her jacket from her chair. ‘Good luck with your… meeting tomorrow.’

He tips his head.

‘Goodbye,’ he replies, his face as unreadable as ever.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse readies himself for his departure from the Commonwealth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand finally the chapter that inspired [this picture](http://princetybalt.tumblr.com/post/157056992577/so-i-had-the-absolute-pleasure-of-commissioning)!

He barely sleeps.

The evening keeps playing out, sometimes a little differently but always with the same result: people know he’s a synth. It’s not a secret any more.

His brain won’t shut down, between reliving what happened and anticipating the journey ahead of him. He tries to pick something to focus on — the distant hum of the radio in another room, the sound of his own pulse — but his old trick from his days on the road does little to help.

Every time there’s a creak outside his door, he expects to be dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night and strung up in the market. Sometimes it’s the locals who come for him in his imaginings; sometimes it’s the Brotherhood.

He can’t take the words back, can’t play it all off as a joke. He had heard the murmurs as he returned to his room in the aftermath; had seen the suspicious glances. Yet when he thinks of Curie — of how lost she had seemed, trapped in the company of people so casually denouncing her kind — he knows he made the right call.

Besides: he’ll be gone in the morning, putting the Commonwealth behind him. If he’s back before they’ve forgotten, he’ll leave again.

He tries not to count the hours, yet something drags his eyes to the clock on the bedside table as an incessant voice informs him how much sleep he’ll get if he should only fall asleep _right now_. As the hours dwindle, he knows he’ll suffer come morning.

When his alarm rouses him eventually, his eyes feel gritty, his head heavy. He wants dearly to slip deeper under the covers — _Just five more forevers,_ as Nora always used to say — but he wills himself to move and soon he’s standing, stretching the kinks of a night of fitful rest from his neck and shoulders.

He slips out of his room just long enough to order a bucket of clean bathing water. As counterintuitive as it might be to bathe before setting out into the wastes, he feels the better for it as he sluices lukewarm water over his skin. When he dabs at the cut on his lip he splits it open again and tastes the tang of his own blood, dabbing hurriedly at it with a corner of his discarded shirt.

Danse trims his facial hair carefully, using the fragment of polished steel he keeps for a mirror. It’ll grow in thick and unkempt on the road in between pit stops; better to keep it short and more manageable for now.

He still has time to spare as he leaves his room; returning his room key to Yefim, he orders a bowl of tato stew from Vadim and swallows it down, skin and all, before he can attract any more attention to himself.

He thinks of his apartment back in Goodneighbor: when he left it the previous afternoon, it looked no more lived-in than it did the day he leased the place. Perhaps the young couple occupying it in his absence will make it feel more homely.

He sets a handful of caps down on the bar by way of a tip and, with a last glance at the clock, gets up and leaves.

The sun hasn’t quite turned the sky blue yet as he hurries through town to the exit, carrying the sum total of his belongings in a pack slung over his shoulders. He’s not the only one already going about their day, however, and he passes by traders and locals alike unnoticed.

Diamond City seems a fitting place to begin his departure from the Commonwealth; of all the settlements, it’s the one that still feels the most like Nora. Even as he takes the steps out of the city, he wonders if she’s asleep or lying awake, her blonde hair spilling out on her pillow around her.

The agent, Claire, waits outside the city limits, ready with a last batch of paperwork for him to sign. He lets the pack slip from his shoulders and stoops, using his knee as a surface to lean on as he presses pen to paper.

‘Monsieur Danse!’

He tapers off mid-signature; the D in his last name starts out with the best of intentions, only for the rest of it to devolve into a squiggle that slants off the line. He’s looking up, glancing about for the source of the voice.

Curie is out of breath when she catches up to him, her pale cheeks rosy from the cold and the exertion. She looks ill-prepared for the cool, crisp morning: in her apparent haste, she neglected to add a jacket over the polka dot shirt she wears.

‘Nora told me you are leaving,’ she states, her voice coming out forceful as she catches her breath. ‘Is this true?’

The agent waits impatiently for the last signature. Danse quickly scrawls it in its rightful place before handing the papers over.

‘Can you give me a minute?’

She taps her foot impatiently, shooting a glance over at the caravan where they stand loading up the last of the packs onto the brahmin’s back.

‘No,’ Claire says briskly. ‘But you can catch up.’

Danse waits until she’s gone; watches her irritably help with one of the caravaneers struggling with a strap attached to the brahmin.

‘Yeah,’ he says after a while, turning back to Curie. The flush of her cheeks has died down, turning them pale again. ‘It’s true.’

He doesn’t understand Curie’s exasperated little sigh — makes even less sense of the way she sets her hands on her hips, shaking her head.

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’ she demands. She doesn’t sound annoyed; just resigned. ‘You never gave us a chance to say goodbye.’

He already said his goodbyes with Nora, as meaningless as that was. His intention had been to slip out of town unnoticed: forgotten.

Curie draws in a little breath; her eyes are on his mouth, and as he darts his tongue out to check the cut there he realizes it’s open yet again.

She’s there before he can react — lifting a hand to his face and tentatively touching her thumb to his lip. She’s so careful not to hurt him as she inspects the cut, so gentle as she turns his head slightly to get a better look.

Danse remembers the first time he really noticed her — the first time he allowed himself to see her as a person, not just a synth. She had worn a battered headband with flowers in her hair, and half his face had been covered by an uncomfortable plastic mask; when she had touched a kiss to the corner of his mouth, he had forgotten just for a moment how it felt to be him.

Her lips are pursed in concentration now; he realizes, with an odd pang, that her tongue pokes out just slightly in thought.

The urge to kiss her comes on so suddenly, so strongly, that he almost acts on it. _Almost._

She’s watching him now, her green eyes appraising him in a way that leaves him feeling exposed. He wonders if she can tell what’s running through his head; before he can think too much about it, she lets her hand slip from his face.

‘I should have looked at that last night,’ she says, shaking her head impatiently. ‘It could get infected.’

‘I’ll live.’

It comes out more gruff than he means it to; she seems offended as she takes a step back.

‘Curie,’ he says. He’s careful to be warmer now: ‘Thank you.’

‘But Monsieur Danse,’ she says, perplexed. ‘I did nothing.’

It doesn’t feel that way to him, yet he keeps that particular thought to himself.

‘You don’t have to call me that every time,’ he says. ‘Just Saul is fine.’

‘Saul?’

She seems to test the name on her tongue; the way it takes shape in her voice, the little lilt her accent gives it, sounds nicer than he ever thought it could. For years he was always Paladin Danse — now, for just a moment, he’s happy to be Saul.

‘I should go,’ he says, with a reluctant glance toward the caravan.

They’re almost out of sight: no problem to catch up to, but he doesn’t want to make a bad impression on his first day.

‘Good luck,’ Curie says.

When she steps close, he’s taken off guard as she wraps her arms around him in a hug. The physical intimacy — so unexpected, after such a long time — leaves him standing rod-straight in the embrace until it occurs to him to return the gesture. 

He notices she’s shivering now, the chill finally catching up to her.

When they separate and he grabs his things and goes off on his way, he doesn’t look back until he’s sure she must have left.

She still stands there in the cold, watching him go.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Valentine's Day in the Commonwealth and Curie and Piper are going stag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got cheesy. Sorry not sorry.

The Dugout is the last place Curie wants to be on Valentine’s Day, but Piper insisted. After she had cut short her plans with Genevieve, it only seemed polite to agree to go along.

‘If you’re going stag tonight,’ Piper had said, ‘I am too.’

Curie hadn’t wanted to _go_ at all.

She tries not to think of Danse as Piper slides a colorful cocktail down the bar to her, but he keeps skirting the edge of her thoughts, never straying far.

The drink Piper ordered for her is sickly sweet, a concoction of winter fruits and liqueurs, crushed with ice into a viscous solution. She shudders a little as she sips it, but the sharp kick after her first mouthful — the tang of vodka — makes her go back for another.

‘You know what?’ Piper says. She has the same cocktail in her hand, but already a third of it is gone. ‘Valentine’s is better single anyways. Look at all the eligible bachelors.’

When Piper waves a hand about the bar, Curie isn’t sure if she’s being falsely hopeful or painfully sarcastic: besides everyone who has paired off with one another, the only patrons left are the usual alcoholics who probably don’t know today from yesterday.

‘I think I will leave dating alone for a little while,’ Curie says, wrinkling her nose. ‘It is… messy.’

Piper snorts out a laugh and slings her arm around Curie’s shoulders, pulling her close. Her long, dark hair smells of the oil she uses to grease the gears on the printing press.

‘I hear you, Curie.’

* * *

This is the third time the same song has played on the radio in the past hour; when Curie questions Piper on it, Vadim interrupts to point across the room. Travis Miles sits there with Scarlett, apparently taking a break from his usual duties on the radio.

‘He has the music on random,’ Vadim says, with a roll of his eyes. ‘Be glad you don’t have to listen to his rambling.’

As Curie watches Travis reach out to take Scarlett’s hand, she wonders if perhaps Valentine’s Day isn’t all bad. She knows Piper would be with Genevieve now, if it hadn’t been for her — but from Piper’s description, it seems that even their picnic had been better than Curie’s recent dating escapades.

She sighs. The day might have passed without event, if she hadn’t allowed herself to get her hopes up.

She’s grown used to the overly sweet taste of the cocktails Piper keeps ordering to sample, even liking some more than others. She’s on something laced with chocolate now, inexpertly mixed by Vadim’s unskilled hands but delicious no less. Piper had to slip him some extra caps to even get him to try the recipes out.

She stirs it with her finger, licking the mixture from her fingertip.

‘Uh, Curie?’

Piper has her back to the bar, one hip popped to the side. Her eyes are wide as she stares past Curie, her drink forgotten in her hand.

Curie knows, logically, that she isn’t moving in slow motion — yet as she pivots on the spot, holding her cocktail to her chest, it’s as though she’s processing everything in macro detail.

She catches the flash of paper hearts overhead, the glint of gold where the light catches the glitter paint used to embellish them; her gaze alights on Travis and Scarlett gazing into each other’s eyes with such profound affection that it makes her breath quicken; around a table, a man jumps up from a card game in session and gives a cheer, throwing down his hand with a flourish.

She blinks, and when she opens her eyes they fall on a strong chest covered in a shirt with mismatched buttons. With a giddy jolt, she knows whose face she’ll find staring down at her — and yet it can’t be; she just saw him off yesterday.

Even as the scientist in her says it’s not possible — that she’s letting her hopes get the better of her — she takes in the sight of that little cut on his lip, still not quite healed, and it’s all she can do not to throw her arms around him and spill her drink all over him in the process.

‘Monsieur Danse,’ she says. Then, remembering herself: ‘Saul.’

‘Curie.’

He seems tangible enough, down to the stubble already thickening out into a beard. She feels a little like she’s dreaming.

‘Welp.’

She glances back over her shoulder, Piper’s voice breaking her reverie. Her friend is in the process of winding her scarf around her neck, somehow managing to down the rest of her drink using her other hand and coordinating it all with grace.

‘Are you leaving?’ Curie asks, quizzical.

Piper’s answering stare is equal parts exasperation and amusement. She places a hand on Curie’s arm and kisses her on the cheek.

‘I’m gonna go find Genevieve and do a little groveling,’ she says. ‘Have a good night.’

She wears a private little smile as she goes, pausing to whisper something in Danse’s ear before slipping past him.

When Curie turns back to Danse, he seems just as confused as she is.

‘Piper said I should ask you to dance,’ he says. ‘You think maybe she’s on to something?’

It’s such a roundabout way of offering, but when he extends his hand to her — she knows before she ever takes it how solid and rough and warm it will be — he’s smiling wryly. 

There’s a different song playing, something she hasn’t heard before. A soulful voice sings of a love that blinds him to everything else; reaching out, she grasps Danse’s hand.

If people are watching as he leads her to an empty spot on the floor, she doesn’t pay them any mind. Her arms slip around his neck, as though driven by a long-lost memory buried away in flesh as much as binary; his hands tentatively touch her hips before coming to rest there, so gentle it seems he’s afraid she’ll flee.

‘I thought you had left,’ she says.

She finds herself whispering, as if afraid to disturb the spell surrounding them. When Danse replies, he keeps his voice similarly low, a pleasant rumble that sets the nape of her neck tingling in some implacable way.

‘I had,’ he says. ‘But I came back.’

‘Why?’

He chuckles, and that tingle is there again — only this time it tiptoes down her spine, making her feel warm and light as though the cocktails are just now kicking in.

‘When I signed my contract,’ he says, ‘the caravan agent asked me if I’d be leaving anything behind. I told her no. Took me a little while to realize there _was_ something.’

Curie feels her breath catch. His dark eyes haven’t left hers, and they glitter in the dim lighting of the inn.

She’s still getting the hang of human emotion — of subtlety and wordplay; of innuendo and nuance — and yet she knows without asking just what he’s getting at. Still: she wants to hear it, in his own words.

‘And what was that?’

When he sighs in feigned frustration, she gives a delicate laugh and he echoes it. They’re so close now she can see his eyes are shot with flecks of amber.

‘You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?’ he says.

He wets his lips — she can’t seem to help glancing down, letting her eyes linger a little longer than they should — and swallows. 

‘You need me to spell it out?’ he asks.

_Yes. Please, please do._

‘Curie,’ he says, hesitant. ‘It was you.’

He’s nervous, she realizes: shallow respiration, dilated pupils. Her own pulse thrums in response to his words, and a delicious warmth spreads through her from head to toe.

‘And how did you know I would be receptive to your charms?’

She’s teasing him; it seems to take him a while to register the playful lilt to her voice, but when he does there’s a tinge of red just visible beneath the deeper tones of his skin.

‘I didn’t.’

She thinks of Nora’s Halloween party, when she had seen a different side to him — of Thanksgiving when he had tended to the cut on her finger so dutifully. The Danse she had first met had been so stoic, so distant. She knows he used to say things about her — things that were never meant for her ears, but which cut to her core. The Danse in her arms might as well be another man. 

‘Won't you get in trouble for breaking your contract?’ she says. 

He huffs out a breath, a frown momentarily darkening his features. 

‘I'll deal with that tomorrow.’

She knows there are curious stares affixed on them — there probably have been from the start — but they're the last thing on her mind. 

The music seems dreamlike as the song stretches on; as Curie closes her eyes, she feels Danse’s hands slip to sit in the curve of her spine and relaxes into his touch. They aren't so much dancing now as swaying to the music, in time with it on occasion but mostly not. 

She registers the weight of one of Danse's hands shifting from her lower back, only to feel his fingers gingerly touch her cheek. When her eyes open he has that look on his face, the one she saw yesterday outside the city perimeter. It had made her feel like she was drowning then; she had fought to keep her head aloft. Now she lets the feeling wash over her, heart hammering in her chest. 

Her kiss with Jim had been inoffensive: promises of a life filled with the mundane, evening strolls and holding hands. When Danse presses his lips to hers, it feels as though she's floating. She’s mindful of the cut on his lip as she melts into the kiss; she feels his hand tighten against the curve of her back in response. 

She's glad Piper isn't here; she doesn't think her friend could resist spoiling the moment with some sly remark. 

It inevitably ends, as all good things must, but when Danse pulls back he can't take his eyes off her.

‘Fireworks,’ she murmurs. 

‘What?’ he says, hazily — as though she's roused him from a dream. 

His brow furrows in confusion, but she doesn't let the frown settle there long before her lips find his once more.


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora has a new pet project and enlists Danse's help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set a month after Chapter 11. Enjoy!

‘So what do you think? It’s got potential, right?’

Danse shields his eyes against the low evening sun.

The cabins are falling apart, the interiors rotted and filled with fungus. The doors on the central building need to be rehung. The old crops, turned wild now after years of neglect, will have to be torn up.

He tries to see the place from her perspective — what it might become, not what it is now. Where he sees decay, she sees a blank canvas. Walls can be mended and painted, the dry earth can be ploughed anew.

‘It’s… It’s a big undertaking,’ he says. He had meant to sound encouraging; he knows he missed the mark.

Nora sighs. She walks ahead and lowers herself to the ground, letting her legs hang over the rocky ridge overlooking the plot.

‘I figured you’d say that.’

* * *

They’ve been arguing a lot today, yet the more time they spend together, the more moments they share in pleasant camaraderie. This isn’t the Nora he served with in the Brotherhood — neither is she the Nora who once shared his bed.

For all their failings as a couple and as fellow soldiers, they seem to have found a tentative peace as friends.

It’s hard work: relentless and physical. Danse knows he should rest and let his body recover, but it’s easy to get lost in the rhythm of it all. Nora has to come to him often with canned water to make sure he doesn’t burn out.

Between them, they clear out the worst of the debris by the end of the first day. They lay out bedrolls on the floor of the old mess hall and each take turns standing watch while the other sleeps.

Settlers from Sanctuary show up on the third day: two young couples, and a man and his teenage daughter. Soon the holes in the walls are patched up and painted to match, and the place starts to look like home.

They all share beers around a fire that night, the man even allowing his daughter a sip. She spits it out with a face of disgust and they all laugh, filling the would-be settlement with the sounds of companionship.

Nora settles herself down beside Danse once the others start to head off to bed; she’s a little clumsy from the beer, and the tip of her nose is tinged red. She sits comfortably close: old friends at a campfire.

‘I was thinking the place in the back,’ she says. ‘By the mess hall.’

It’s too dark out to see it now, but he knows the one.

‘Yeah? It’s not bad.’

Nora snorts mid-swig of beer and struggles to swallow.

‘“Not bad”?’ she echoes, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. ‘Way to ruin my surprise.’

He looks at her quizzically, one eyebrow cocked. 

‘Surprise?’

She rolls her eyes and gets to her feet; he feels the weight of her hand on his shoulder.

‘G’night, Danse,’ she says. ‘See you in the morning.’

There are questions on his lips as she leaves, which he never quite gets around to voicing. He sips his beer and watches her go, as mystified by her as ever.

It isn’t until later, when he eventually finishes his beer and turns in, that he finds a key on top of his bed roll. There’s no note, no explanation, but he already knows which door it opens.

* * *

Curie’s cheeks are pink from the chill in the air, but it does little to hide the spray of fresh freckles across her face, newly darkened by the sun.

He hadn’t expected her to help out — when she had asked if he wanted to come to Piper’s for dinner he had begged off as he was busy, only for her to offer her assistance. They’ve worked side by side all afternoon, finishing off the cabin that Nora gave him to keep.

He watches her stretch up on tiptoes to reach an elusive patch of wall with her paintbrush; each time she tries, she falls short. He finds himself wondering what it would be like to slip his arm around her waist, underneath her sweater where it rides up a little; what it would feel like to hold her to him, and press kisses against her slender neck.

They’re both shy — painfully so. It’s a wonder he ever managed to force the words out of his mouth on Valentine’s Day, before it was too late.

‘Saul,’ she says, turning to him. He feels that little tug of pleasure to hear her say his given name. ‘Will you stand there watching all day, or will you help me?’

She’s all mock indignation: a scolding teacher. He can’t help but split into a grin as he sidles up and takes the paintbrush from her, easily reaching the spot she had so much trouble stretching up to.

They quench their thirst with water when they’re done — glasses of the stuff, cool and fresh, drawn from the newly-installed pump. To Danse, it tastes sweeter than any fruit ever could.

They take their seats on the porch of the cabin. The wooden boards sag a little under their weight — another task to attend to, whenever Danse gets the time — but other than that it’s pretty close to perfect.

‘I think you will like it here,’ Curie says. She seems genuinely impressed as she glances the settlement over. ‘It is perhaps quieter than you are used to, but it is very beautiful.’

Danse nods thoughtfully. It’s no Goodneighbor, and it’s certainly nothing like the hectic pace aboard the Prydwen.

‘Quiet’s good,’ he says. ‘I don’t get enough of it.’

Her eyes land on him and he feels her study him in that curious way of hers. He wants, as he often does, to ask what she’s thinking of when she watches him like that. It’s something he never gets around to; he’s a little afraid of what she’ll say.

‘Wait a moment,’ she says suddenly.

She barely sets her glass aside before springing to her feet and marching off towards the main building of the settlement. The porch creaks in complaint as she steps off it.

When she returns she has something under her arm — a package of some sort, wrapped in brown paper. She thrusts it out to him once she’s in front of him.

‘What is it?’ he asks uncertainly.

She waves it in his face.

‘Open it.’

He’s nonplussed as he takes it from her. Carefully, with utmost diligence so he doesn’t tear the neat wrapping, he opens it. Curie watches him all the while, her hands clasped in front of her.

It’s a book — faded and old, but better kept than any wthe average wastelander might find on their travels. When he opens the cover to look at the title page the print is almost pristine.

 _The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe_ , it reads. Danse can’t help but take in a breath of the sweet, musty smell that comes off the pages as he flicks through them.

‘You don’t like it?’ Curie says.

He glances up at her, eyes wide with surprise.

‘Don’t _like_ it?’ he echoes. ‘Curie, I _love_ it. I just… I don’t understand why you got this for me.’

She looks down at her shoes, embarrassed.

‘I meant to give it to you at Christmas,’ she says. ‘But… when you disappeared, I never had the chance.’

It still leaves a knot of guilt in his stomach even now — he hadn’t known at the time what he was leaving behind. He’s just glad he didn’t make the mistake a second time.

He sets the book aside with infinite care, then seeks out her hand with his own.

‘I’m sorry.’

He thumbs over the back of her hand, over the stray flecks of paint. When he glances up, she’s watching him again.

With infinite care, she lowers herself until she’s sitting on his knee.

‘You do not have to apologize,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

Her hand is still in his; he lets it go, and cups her cheek instead. He thinks maybe her breathing picks up a little as he tilts her face toward him.

‘Thank you, Curie,’ he murmurs.

They’ve shared a few kisses since that day at the Dugout — tentative ones, heated ones, the kind that left him breathless — but by and large they’ve moved at a snail’s pace over the past few weeks, like teenagers learning it all afresh. For her, that much is true; he supposes, in a way, that it is for him too.

As he moves to kiss her this time — when he sees her close her eyes, her lashes catching the golden light of the sunset — he wonders if there’ll ever be a day when his heart doesn’t hammer so hard just being this close to her.

The kiss is slow and languid; they know there’s no rush. He threads his fingers through the silken strands of her hair, and she responds by slipping her arms around his neck. He breaks away only once, to press kisses across the angle of her jaw, and it’s enough to elicit a soft little sound of pleasure from her.

When they inevitably pull away, he feels drunk.

‘We should get back to work before it gets too dark,’ she says, her voice husky.

Even as she speaks, her body belies her words: she slips further into his lap, and the warmth of her against his chest is irresistible. 

‘Later,’ he murmurs, winding his other arm around her waist.

The cabin can wait; they have all the time in the world.


End file.
